Global warming is happening. That is the scientific judgment
Donald L Ferrt
Headline:
An uphill battle?
Doing nothing a sure path to disaster
By Kevin Trenberth
Sunday, June 30, 2002 - The Bush administration has opted out of the
Kyoto Protocol, with its binding targets for emissions, on the grounds
that it would hurt the economy. It is not so clear that this has to be
so, provided that actions are implemented in the right way and, in
particular, in the right time. However, none of the arguments take
into account the very real costs of not doing anything.
Global warming is happening. That is the scientific judgment of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, backed up by a special
report from the National Academy of Sciences. What this means is that
the observed changes in the composition of the atmosphere due to human
activities are now well enough established to have recently caused the
global climate to change outside the realm of natural variability of
the past 10,000 years.
In terms of the observed increase in global mean temperatures of 1.2 F
over the past 100 years, about 0.8 F - and probably by 0.7 F just
since 1970 - is likely caused by increases in greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere. Changes in the sun are thought to have contributed to
modest warming in the first half of the 20th century.
There is no longer any argument about whether human activities are
causing global climate change. Instead, it is now about the details,
how much it will amount to in the future, and the impacts and costs.
But many of these arguments seem academic and, of course, they will
remain so until there are proven effects of global warming.
But there is the rub. It is almost impossible to prove that any event
is a consequence of global warming, because climate is made up of the
sum total of weather events. There is always a finite, albeit small,
chance that something weird will happen in the infinite variety of
weather. But, with global warming, the odds of certain kinds of
behavior change.
Global warming arises from increases in greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere. The main source of the problem is the observed buildup in
carbon dioxide primarily from the burning of fossil fuels, and so it
is related to our energy usage. Since carbon dioxide has a lifetime of
more than a century in the atmosphere, emissions accumulate and are
spread around the world.
It is truly a global problem. So far, amounts of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere have increased by more than 30 percent, mostly since World
War II. The United States contributes about a quarter of the
emissions, much more than any other country.
Because carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, it traps the Earth's
radiation and therefore blankets the Earth, causing global heating (or
warming). This causes average global surface temperatures to rise. But
most of the heat at the surface actually goes into evaporating
moisture, creating drying. And once the ground is dry, the temperature
goes up.
And so global warming promotes drying and droughts. And then the
droughts promote heat waves and wildfires. But the moisture that goes
into the atmosphere does not disappear. It gets carried away by winds,
and gathered into storms often hundreds of miles away.
The additional moisture forms fuel for storms, both individual
thunderstorms and major cyclones, with their warm and cold fronts.
Storms are invigorated, and precipitation is heavier than it otherwise
would be, both because the storm is more severe and because there is
more moisture. So the risk of flooding increases. .... (cont)
Author:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
Kevin Trenberth is head of the Climate Analysis Section at the
National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. Trenberth has
been active in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Scientific Assessment. He can be reached at tren...@cgd.ucar.edu, or
at his website, http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
WDA
causing global climate change...."
"... It is almost impossible to prove that any event is a consequence of
global warming...."
Then how do we know the solution is reducing our GNP by 7%?
WDA
end
Ian St. John
"WDA" <ball...@adelphia.net> wrote in message
news:4p0U8.1062$ka6.1...@news3.news.adelphia.net...
"The moon is a fruit loop."
"The moon is made of green cheese. "
So how do we know that we went to the moon?
Ian St. John
"Ian St. John" <ist...@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:3d20b6af$1...@audacity.velocet.net...
Note: The above was sarcasm, pointing out that taking two unattributed
statements and then making a third non-sequitor based on them does not
result in a debatable point.
Alastair McDonald
We don't. The solution may be to reduce GNP by 70%, if you want to
prevent the US turning into the American equivalent of the Sahara Desert.
We are not warning you about the 0.6 deg C rise that happened last
century. We are warning you about the 6 deg C rise that will happen
during this century.
Cheers, Alastair.
Norton
cheap fossil fuels is going to dry up (or at least make their use
prohibitively expensive for things like coal fired power plants and
automobiles). So what is the difference if we cut back on burning fossil
fuels now (thus extending their use over a longer time period), or we let
the free market decide on when they run out (thus resulting in them being
depleted sooner). Either way we are going to use them all up at some point
and put all that CO2 into the atmosphere. Either way some alternative is
going to have to be found. Either way, pollution control technology will
continue to improve. Is it more harmful to the earth if they are all used
up sooner or if it takes a few hundred extra years to burn through them?
I for one am very glad Bush isn't over reacting to all the hype about global
warming.
Matt
"Donald L Ferrt" <wolfb...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:b9eb3efe.02063...@posting.google.com...
Amos Keppler
> I think most of us agree that at some point the freely flowing supply of
> cheap fossil fuels is going to dry up (or at least make their use
> prohibitively expensive for things like coal fired power plants and
> automobiles). So what is the difference if we cut back on burning fossil
> fuels now (thus extending their use over a longer time period), or we let
> the free market decide on when they run out (thus resulting in them being
> depleted sooner). Either way we are going to use them all up at some point
> and put all that CO2 into the atmosphere. Either way some alternative is
> going to have to be found. Either way, pollution control technology will
> continue to improve. Is it more harmful to the earth if they are all used
> up sooner or if it takes a few hundred extra years to burn through them?
>
> I for one am very glad Bush isn't over reacting to all the hype about global
> warming.
>
One who is certainly not happy about his lack of action is his fellow
repuclican from alaska:
WEEK 26 June 17th to 23rd 2002
REAL LIFE, PERSONALLY EXPERIENCED GLOBAL WARMING
Monday, 17 Jun 2002
In Alaska, some 4,000 miles from Capitol Hill, global warming is neither an
abstraction nor up for debate. It's simply a reality -- and not, generally
speaking, a pleasant one. High water is eating away houses and buildings,
mosquitoes are invading where once they were unheard of, hunters are getting
trapped on breakaway ice, permafrost is no longer permanent (meaning building
foundations are slouching and buckling), and on the Kenai Peninsula, a 4 million
acre spruce forest has been killed by hot-weather-happy beetles in the largest
forest loss ever recorded in North America. Sen. Ted Stevens, a Republican, can
hardly take the party line on climate change when he's witnessed the sagging
roads, crumbling towns, dead forests, and catastrophic fires that are
devastating his home state. Mean temperatures in Alaska have risen by 5 degrees
in summer and 10 degrees in winter since the 1970's, federal officials say, and
climate models predict that temperatures will continue to increase over this
century, by up to 18 degrees.
Editor’s notes: In Antarctica and Greenland evidence continues to mount over
melting glaciers. People in Siberia are experiencing similar overwhelming
problems as in Alaska. Islands in the pacific are “sinking”. Another heat-wave
is ravaging southern Europe… And so on.
Incidents written off as hysteria merely three years ago have become
commonplace.
Amos
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
THE WEEKLY REPORT
dangerous news and articles collected from around the world
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awareness, forums and discussions about PageOne news and facts
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"Objection is when I say: this doesn't suit me. Resistance is when I make sure
that what doesn't suit me never happens again".
- Ulrike Meinhof, In Politics
Ian St. John
"Alastair McDonald" <abb...@nospam.abbemac.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:afqf8d$29j$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk...
I think 6 degrees is unsupportable even with the lack of good reduction
strategies. However, that is not the point anyway, IMO.
Two statements are made. Are they true?
1: "...There is no longer any argument about whether human activities are
causing global climate change...."
Answer: Untrue as yet. There is no argument about GW occurring and being
primarily due to anthropogenic GHG emissions.
But climate change?? There are huge debates about every new climate
phenomenon, and as yet no clear consensus of what causes them, much less if
that cause is specifically GW.
2: "... It is almost impossible to prove that any event is a consequence of
global warming...."
What level of 'proof' is needed is the first thing that comes to mind. To be
absolutely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a direct link,
meaning that a warming of X degrees will result in a climate event Y?
No. We are not that definitive about any climate event.
Now, a true and a false statement mean? Nothing. There is no argument here
based on them.
The point is not whether Tropical Storm Alice was due to GW or not. The
question is whether there will be a worsening of climate as a result of a
higher planetary temperature. The answer to THIS question is yes, beyond
ordinaay doubt, mostly due to changes in the hydrological cycle in a warmer
atmposphere.
3: "Then how do we know the solution is reducing our GNP by 7%?"
There is no basis for this statement. Nobody has said that reducing GNP will
reduce GW. It may increase it, if lower cost fuels are substituted for
higher priced natural gas or hydro power, etc. The question is so silly as
to merit a serious sneer in response.
Now, the real question is, given uncertainties in the cost/benefit ratio of
trying to fight a fire, do you fight fires? Why? You cannot predict the
outcome with certainty. You may not even be able to bring the fire into
control, and waste the entire cost. The cost of water, equipment, time, etc
may exceed the value burned. Lives may be lost. All because of a small fire
that may not really exist and if it does may not burn much and if it does
burn a lot, may become too hard to fight, and there may be nothing you can
do about it, so why waste money?
Norton
another, or there is a few years of draught somewhere doesn't mean
increasing the cost of gasoline thru taxes is going to make the temperature
in that area never ever ever change.
Matt
"Amos Keppler" <amosk...@rockymountaineers.com> wrote in message
news:3D20CC1E...@rockymountaineers.com...
> is ravaging southern Europe. And so on.
Amos Keppler
> Just because the temperature goes up in one part of the world and down in
> another, or there is a few years of draught somewhere doesn't mean
> increasing the cost of gasoline thru taxes is going to make the temperature
> in that area never ever ever change.
Excuse me, but what did you just say...
The usual generalities and attempts at diversions, I presume.
You're evidently concerned about taxes.
But a lot of us see the problem in more definite, drastic terms.
The first step towards solving a problem, a threat is to realize its existence.
Many people, including you keep insisting it isn't any or you're coming with
your diversions.
Alaska, you see is just one example of many.
The permafrost is melting in Siberia. CO2 is literally rising from the ground.
WAIS (the west Antarctic Ice Shelf to you unenlightened out there) is melting
fast.
The ice at the top of Mount Everest, the highest elevation in the world is
melting.
Animals are found further north than they've ever been.
The growth season in both Canada and Northern have been increased with at
leaast 11 days (conservative estimate two years ago).
These are merely a few out of thousands upon thousands of alarming news, a
random selection.
======================================================================
The Weekly Report - Archives
http://www.midnight-fire.net/theweeklyreport/archives.html
WEEK 25 June 10th to 16th 2002
WARMING WORLD ON THIN ICE
Rapidly melting glaciers threaten death to millions by making huge areas
uninhabitable
Joanna Walters
Sunday June 9, 2002
The Observer
Ian McNaught-Davis has spent a long time in the mountains. Stocky and affable,
the president of mountaineering's international association, the UIAA, is not
easily fazed. But when he hiked into the glaciers
surrounding the world's highest mountains on a UIAA mission funded by the United
Nations Environment Programme, he was profoundly shocked. For generations of
explorers, environmentalists and local people, these
cold Himalayan valleys, with glaciers that stretch for miles, seemed to
symbolise a kind of cold, brutal permanence. After hiking through zero
visibility and atrocious weather for five days, McNaught-Davis emerged into a
sherpa village surrounded by breathtaking scenery. There he was confronted with
a shocking truth: the glaciers on Everest were melting alarmingly quickly.
McNaught-Davis listened as kinsmen of Nepalese sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who
conquered Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953, reported a rapid retreat of
the Khumbu glacier from which the two pioneers set out. Sherpas and Buddhist
lamas told him the glacier no longer reached to where Hillary's base camp tents
were pitched: it had melted three miles up the valley. To check their accounts,
McNaught-Davis climbed up to a glacial meltpool at 5,000 metres that 20 years
ago was marked on maps as a series of small ponds.
He found that the ponds had merged into a vast lake more than a mile long. 'It
was huge. I was completely amazed,' he said. 'Further up the glacier you can see
more ponds forming.' And it is happening so quickly
that map makers cannot keep up. Locally, the prospect of these glacial lakes
bursting their banks and obliterating whole villages is frightening. Globally,
McNaught-Davis believes what mountaineers are seeing first is a bellwether for
the climate change affecting us all.
'It is a harbinger, a clue that something terrible is happening. Some
scientists say "It must be other factors", but when you talk to people who have
lived and climbed in these mountains for 60 years they say it
is getting warmer, and the glaciers are shrinking at a sprint.'
Closer to home in the Alps, mountaineers report that rock pillars held on to
their crags by ice for thousands of years are simply crumbling away as the ice
melts. The climbing and skiing resort of Chamonix is under threat in the
longterm, as the peaks around Mont Blanc begin to lose their ice and become more
prone to avalanches.
McNaught-Davis said a recent visit to the Eiger in Switzerland was a shock
too. 'The north face used to have three massive ice fields. The last time I was
there, there was one left, and it was almost gone.'
Glaciers on the African peaks of Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya are receding
rapidly, and the same is happening in the South American Andes.
It is not only the mountain glaciers that are melting. American Nasa
scientists say the rate at which the huge Greenland ice sheet is melting has
increased by a fifth in the last two decades. This is because more meltwater is
trickling down from the surface of the sheet to the bedrock 1,200 metres below.
The water 'lubricates' the path of the whole sheet, causing it to slip faster
towards the sea. Team member Jay Zwally said such a process had never before
been detected in large ice sheets.
Nasa believes global warming could be to blame - and it is the first time the
scientists (at NASA - editor’s note) have suggested such a link. This pattern is
repeated in all the world's coldest places. Antarctica has been the scene of
huge collapses of ice shelves. In the Arctic, seasonal melting around the North
Pole has led to a suggestion that soon shipping will be able to navigate the
North West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
All this comes as the world's environment Ministers failed at a meeting in
Bali last week to agree tough action to halt global warming and wipe out
poverty. They now approach the Earth Summit in Johannesburg in August in
disarray and facing accusations of betrayal from environmental groups.
Kate Hampton, international climate campaigner for Friends of the Earth, sees
a direct link between disagreement among Western nations about how to tackle
pollution and the reports of vanishing ice sheets. 'Glaciers are the water
towers of the world - vital for storage. If they are melting fast this has grave
implications for the people who live locally but is also a sign of global
warming.
'Water supplies everywhere are under threat from climate change,' she said.
Water is a vital bargaining chip in any Middle East peace talks. While politics
and religion grab the headlines, shrinking water resources in this dry region
are always a major factor when negotiators draw lines on maps.
Hampton warned that without serious strategies to reverse global warming, the
next few decades would see tens of millions of 'climate refugees' fleeing
regions in Africa and Asia, where extreme drought and floods become the norm.
'What will happen when millions of Bangladeshis from the flood plains are
literally washed out, and end up spilling into poor parts of India?' she said.
In the US scientists are warning that the 'sunshine state' of California could
become the 'desert state'.
The Intergovernmental Conference on Climate Change has already established
that the average temperature on Earth rose by 0.6 C in the twentieth century.
They predict it will be between 1.4 C and 5.8 C warmer by 2100 than it was in
1990. The sea could rise by between nine and 88cms. The higher end of these
forecasts spells an environmental apocalypse. Today it means a few disappointed
ice climbers, but by the end of the century it could mean death for tens of
millions. In Britain the winters are already becoming warmer, with violent
storms and flash floods more frequent. Hampton said the reports of disappearing
Himalayan glaciers confirmed what many scientists and environmentalists had been
saying for a decade.
'This is a serious issue in areas where the people who live there are the
least responsible for causing the problem - industrialised nations are not
getting to grips with this in the face of the most overwhelming evidence,' she
said.
The Kyoto protocol was meant to make the climate targets reached at the Rio
Earth Summit 10 years ago more enforceable. But while the European Union is
preparing to sign up to the protocol this year the US first watered it down,
then walked away from it - holding the world's climate hostage, said Hampton.
Campaigners are worried that what should in effect be an emergency summit to
save the planet in Johannesburg will be at best a farce and at worst a
confirmation of the power of corporate America over the environment - with
President George W. Bush presiding as polluter-in-chief.
Ian McNaught-Davis believes every car-driving Westerner munching fruit flown
in from halfway around the globe must take a share of responsibility for pumping
climate-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
'It's about time we slowed this whole thing down and stopped it. If the US
would get off their arses, maybe someone would sit up and take notice,' he
added.
Editor’s comment: Japanese scientists has already predicted that the
temperature will rise at least 10 degrees Celsius within the next thirty years,
stating that the IPCC numbers are far too conservative, that they fail totally
to take the acceleration process inherit in the system into account, and that
between 70 to 80 percent of all ice on Earth will melt within the mentioned 30
year period.
This will result in at the very least a 50 meter searise.
========================================
hanson
> between 70 to 80 percent of all ice on Earth will
> melt within the mentioned 30 year period.
> This will result in at the very least a 50 meter searise.
> "Objection is when I say: this doesn't suit me.
> Resistance is when I make sure that what
> doesn't suit me never happens again".
[hanson]
Is that quote from the terrorist Meinhof-Baader gang bitch?
Look what it got her :Committed suicide in prison.
You sure honor the memory of strange people, Amos.
Now, Amos,
50 meters you, say?
Great, I am gonna take my GPS, drive inland along the coast,
150 -250 ft above sea-level, and I will buy real estate at this
particular elevation. Cheap, 2nd-3rd tier lots ~ 1-2 mile inland.
These lots will become costly, hi-value, prime ocean front property.
You know, the old adage: Buy low, sell high.
I'll invite you for a great beach vacation stay,
if you are still gonna be around after this rise.......
Thanks for the tip, Amos.
hanson
PS: You know what's so neat about this, Amos?
The long, long time I can take to select and buy the best locations
for the least amount of dough. This is a capitalist's dream, an
investor's heaven, Amos! Get with the program Amos, instead of
whining about it and watch others walk away with the Profits, man!!
Norton
real smart scientists (much smarter than myself) on both sides of the issue
(petition of 17,000 qualified scientists on the side that there is no
convincing evidence of GW compared to petition of 2,600 maybe-not-so
qualified scientists on the side that immediate action is needed to counter
GW). http://www.heartland.org/studies/ieguide.htm#1.
Who's right and who's wrong.....no one knows for sure. The truth is
probably somewhere in the middle and anyone that says they are certain one
way or the other is blowing hot air, and all that hot air just compounds the
problem. I for one will tend to side on the side of good science over
tabloid headlines of regional climate changes that probably have absolutely
nothing to do with GW.
What is known for sure is that the earth's climate will undergo changes all
by itself and mankind cannot stop that from occurring. Even if greenhouse
gas emissions are cut by 100%, the climate will still change over time just
like it always has in the past. So what is the point of sending the economy
farther into the dump and thus taking more money out of my pocket to fix
something that may not be broken in the first place and even on the off
chance that it is broken, no amount of money may be able to fix it. All I
ask is for the decision makers to use common sense and listen to science,
not doomsayers....and I think that's what the Bush administration has done.
If there was a good consensus in the scientific community that found global
warming is a serious problem and needs to be immediately addressed by
spending billions of dollars, I would be on board, and Bush probably would
too.
Matt
"Amos Keppler" <amosk...@rockymountaineers.com> wrote in message
news:3D21115F...@rockymountaineers.com...
Tim Worstall
> Norton wrote:
>
> > Just because the temperature goes up in one part of the world and down in
> > another, or there is a few years of draught somewhere doesn't mean
> > increasing the cost of gasoline thru taxes is going to make the temperature
> > in that area never ever ever change.
>
> Excuse me, but what did you just say...
>
> The usual generalities and attempts at diversions, I presume.
>
> You're evidently concerned about taxes.
>
> But a lot of us see the problem in more definite, drastic terms.
>
> The first step towards solving a problem, a threat is to realize its existence.
> Many people, including you keep insisting it isn't any or you're coming with
> your diversions.
> Alaska, you see is just one example of many.
>
> The permafrost is melting in Siberia. CO2 is literally rising from the ground.
Here you have me confused.
The permafrost is melting.....OK, we´ll assume this is true. How does
this mean that CO2 is literally rising from the ground ? I mean it´s
just water metling right ? And CO2 dissolves ( to some extent ) in
water....
I don´t get it. Can you tell me what I´m missing here ?
This isn´t an attempt to start a shouting match.....I really would
like to try and understand this.
Tim Worstall
> scientists (at NASA - editor’s note) have suggested such a link. This pattern is
> Editor’s comment: Japanese scientists has already predicted that the
Joshua Halpern
Tim Worstall wrote:
> Amos Keppler <amosk...@rockymountaineers.com> wrote
> > The permafrost is melting in Siberia. CO2 is literally
> > rising from the ground.
> Here you have me confused.
> The permafrost is melting.....OK, we´ll assume this is true. How does
> this mean that CO2 is literally rising from the ground ? I mean it´s
> just water metling right ? And CO2 dissolves ( to some extent ) in
> water....
> I don´t get it. Can you tell me what I´m missing here ?
> This isn´t an attempt to start a shouting match.....I really would
> like to try and understand this.
Organic matter trapped in the permafrost can decay much
faster when the icy matrix in which it is trapped melts.
However, the bad scenerio is that vast amounts of
methane will be released if the ground above them
warms.
I think we've discussed the methane hydrate part since
you came in, but the organic decay part is often treated
implicitly.
josh halpern
Lloyd Parker
"Norton" <no...@none.com> wrote:
>Look, I'm not an expert on global warming, but I do know there are
plenty of
>real smart scientists (much smarter than myself) on both sides of the
issue
of years. Try going to the web sites of NASA, NOAA, NAS, ACS, etc.
>
>(petition of 17,000 qualified scientists on the side that there is no
>convincing evidence of GW compared to petition of 2,600 maybe-not-so
>qualified scientists on the side that immediate action is needed to
counter
>GW). http://www.heartland.org/studies/ieguide.htm#1.
That "petition" is a lie and a fraud.
>
>Who's right and who's wrong.....no one knows for sure.
YOU would, if you'd read the scientific literature.
> The truth is
>probably somewhere in the middle and anyone that says they are certain
one
>way or the other is blowing hot air, and all that hot air just
compounds the
>problem. I for one will tend to side on the side of good science over
>tabloid headlines of regional climate changes that probably have
absolutely
>nothing to do with GW.
>
>What is known for sure is that the earth's climate will undergo
changes all
>by itself and mankind cannot stop that from occurring.
But we can keep huge changes from happening in a century instead of a
millenium if it happens naturally.
> Even if greenhouse
>gas emissions are cut by 100%, the climate will still change over time
just
>like it always has in the past.
Perhaps (although there's more and more evidence the earth hasn't been
as hot as it's going to get in 100 years or so, for hundreds of
thousands of years), but the time frame will be drastically different.
> So what is the point of sending the economy
>farther into the dump
Actually, all the new technology that would come would be a boost to
whatever country decides to really make the jump.
> and thus taking more money out of my pocket to fix
>something that may not be broken in the first place
Right-wingers and industry-funded shills said that about CFCs
destroying the ozone layer too.
>and even on the off
>chance that it is broken, no amount of money may be able to fix it.
All I
>ask is for the decision makers to use common sense and listen to
science,
>not doomsayers....and I think that's what the Bush administration has
done.
Actually, why don't you listen to science? It's telling you something
quite different from what, in your ignorance, you think it is.
>
>If there was a good consensus in the scientific community that found
global
>warming is a serious problem and needs to be immediately addressed by
>spending billions of dollars, I would be on board, and Bush probably
would
>too.
Only if his business cronies were convinced they could make a huge
profit in the next quarter from it.
Norton
> of years. Try going to the web sites of NASA, NOAA, NAS, ACS, etc.
>
> >
Good idea...this is direct from NASA website
(http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/GlobalWarming/):
"On the other hand, there are those, some of whom are scientists, who
believe that global warming will result in little more than warmer winters
and increased plant growth. They point to the flaws in scientists'
measurements, the complexity of the climate, and the uncertainty in the
climate models used to predict climate change. They claim that attempting to
lower greenhouse emissions may do more damage to the world economy and human
society than any amount of global warming. In truth, the future probably
fits somewhere between these two scenarios. But to gain an understanding of
global warming, it is necessary to get to know the science behind the
issue."
"While the general consensus among scientists is that global warming is real
and its overall effects are detrimental, there are still some prominent
scientists who feel that the threat of global warming has been greatly
exaggerated."
This is almost exactly what I had said in my original post....that there are
reputable scientists on both sides of the issue. Is it 50/50, 70/30 or
30/70 doesn't really matter....it certainly isn't 90% to 10% one way or the
other. If the scientists can't come to a concensus, who am I (or you) to
think we know more than they by discounting one entire side of the
arguement. I'm not trying to say GW isn't occuring...I just don't think
there is enough evidence to show drastic policy changes need to be made
right now.
> That "petition" is a lie and a fraud.
>
Yes I've seen the arguement that the signers were duped into signing
something they didn't understand or they based their entire opinion on one
article included with the mailer. A little difficult for me to believe that
one. The other arguement I found was that the names were all made
up.....also a little difficult to believe. If you have any other good
sources of information that show that petition to be a fraud, I'd like to
check them out. Believe it or not I want to know the truth.
Matt
"Lloyd Parker" <lpa...@NOSPAM.emory.edu> wrote in message
news:afsugq$ln3$3...@puck.cc.emory.edu...
Jerry Okamura
nothing about it. What is the worse case scenario? Now let us assume that
the worst case scenario happens. What would then happen?
"Donald L Ferrt" <wolfb...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:b9eb3efe.02063...@posting.google.com...
Ian St. John
"Jerry Okamura" <okamu...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message
news:LYqU8.68187$xy.20...@twister.socal.rr.com...
> Let us assume that global warming is a certainty.
Why assume when we have the evidence?
> Let us also assume we do
> nothing about it.
Again, why assume when..
> What is the worse case scenario?
We don't know. Anything we can prove is still subject to an unknown, such as
THC shutdown, methane hydride release, collapse of greenland icesheet (7
meter sea rise ) or WAIS ice sheet collapse (5 meter sea rise), a variable
climate similar to the oscillation we now get between the polar vortexes
causing wild changes in weather over periods of a few weeks, etc, etc. We
only know a few likely scenarios to be certain. No matter what we imagine,
there may be another problem that we haven't even suspected.
> Now let us assume that
> the worst case scenario happens. What would then happen?
The worst case, of course.
Charlie Root
> Let us assume that global warming is a certainty. Let us also assume we do
> nothing about it. What is the worse case scenario? Now let us assume that
> the worst case scenario happens. What would then happen?
Would the tree make a sound if civilization werent there to hear it, kinda
thing?
Thomas Palm
>
> We don't know. Anything we can prove is still subject to an unknown, such as
> THC shutdown, methane hydride release, collapse of greenland icesheet (7
> meter sea rise ) or WAIS ice sheet collapse (5 meter sea rise), a variable
> climate similar to the oscillation we now get between the polar vortexes
> causing wild changes in weather over periods of a few weeks, etc, etc. We
> only know a few likely scenarios to be certain. No matter what we imagine,
> there may be another problem that we haven't even suspected.
>
> > Now let us assume that
> > the worst case scenario happens. What would then happen?
>
> The worst case, of course.
These kind of changes would cause crops to fail, and farmlands to be
flooded. The ensuing famine and large scale migrations destabilizes
the global political scene and lead to a new world war where nations
deliberately try to wipe out as many people as possible to get new
space to live, or to avoid beeing flooded by refugees. Using the
doomsday weapons available in 50 years humanity would then proceed to
wipe itself out in an orgy of nuclear and biological warfare.
Is that enough of a worst case scanario for you?
Scott Douglas
> This is almost exactly what I had said in my original post....that
> there are reputable scientists on both sides of the issue. Is it
> 50/50, 70/30 or 30/70 doesn't really matter....it certainly isn't 90%
> to 10% one way or the other.
Correct, it's more like 98% to 2%. And yes, percentages do matter.
There are still scientists who deny the theory of evolution, still
scientists who research UFO's and still scientists on the take of Tobacco
companies who argue that smoking isn't dangeous.
> If the scientists can't come to a
> concensus, who am I (or you) to think we know more than they by
> discounting one entire side of the arguement.
Yet from the very section you quote we read the following....
"While the general consensus among scientists is that global warming is
real and its overall effects are detrimental, there are still some
prominent scientists who feel that the threat of global warming has been
greatly exaggerated."
So is there consensus? Clearly your own quote that you use to try to claim
that there is no consensus, explicitly states that there is.
But denialists do have a habit of ignoring evidence that doesn't confirm
their perverse view of the world.
> I'm not trying to say
> GW isn't occuring...I just don't think there is enough evidence to
> show drastic policy changes need to be made right now.
Drastic policy changes are not being proposed right now. Only a minor
policy change of reducing emissions to the rates of he early 90's.
But drastic policy changes will be made, and made soon. And they will hurt
more than they need to because they were postponed from earlier dates.
>> That "petition" is a lie and a fraud.
"Norton" <no...@none.com> wrote in
> Yes I've seen the arguement that the signers were duped into signing
> something they didn't understand or they based their entire opinion on
> one article included with the mailer. A little difficult for me to
> believe that one.
Then why did the NAS accuse Singer of committing fraud?
"Norton" <no...@none.com> wrote in
> The other arguement I found was that the names were
> all made up.....also a little difficult to believe.
Different petition. Then please explain why many of the signatories can
not be found? Explain how some were found to be simply fraudulent?
Explain how the signatories were passed off as scientists when in fact the
list contains political flunkies, politicians, industry shills, weather
jockies, and truck drivers.
Lloyd Parker
"Jerry Okamura" <okamu...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
>Let us assume that global warming is a certainty. Let us also assume
we do
>nothing about it. What is the worse case scenario?
Sea level rises several meters. Billions of people are displaced.
Climate changes -- agricultural regions become too dry, or too hot.
Other areas may become warmer, but a lot don't have the soil or the
infrastructure to take up the slack. Hurricanes and other storms
become more numerous and more violent. Tropical diseases move into
other climates. Wetlands become salty, and we not only lose them as
ecosystems but as purifiers of water. Ecosystems and species of plants
and animals are wiped out, as 100 years is too soon for them to adapt.
Glaciers melt, there's less snowfall, and lots of places (like Los
Angeles) depend on snow for their drinking water.
> Now let us assume that
>the worst case scenario happens. What would then happen?
Huh?
Lloyd Parker
It is, more like 999 to 1, that (1) global warming is occurring and (2)
it's due to human activities.
The debate is over how much, how soon.
>If the scientists can't come to a concensus, who am I (or you) to
>think we know more than they by discounting one entire side of the
>arguement. I'm not trying to say GW isn't occuring...I just don't
think
>there is enough evidence to show drastic policy changes need to be
made
>right now.
>
>
>
>> That "petition" is a lie and a fraud.
>>
>
>Yes I've seen the arguement that the signers were duped into signing
>something they didn't understand or they based their entire opinion on
one
>article included with the mailer. A little difficult for me to
believe that
>one. The other arguement I found was that the names were all made
>up.....also a little difficult to believe. If you have any other good
>sources of information that show that petition to be a fraud, I'd like
to
>check them out. Believe it or not I want to know the truth.
I believe Scientific American did a nice little expose on that
"petition" a few years back.
Josh Morel
> reputable scientists on both sides of the issue. Is it 50/50, 70/30 or
> 30/70 doesn't really matter....it certainly isn't 90% to 10% one way or the
> other.
Well, if you take away all those who work for(or are funded by, or
have interest in, etc) polluting companies or the politicians who
support them then the scientific community is well above 90% in favour
of global warming being a serious problem that is caused by humans.
Scott Douglas
> causing global climate change...."
>
> "... It is almost impossible to prove that any event is a consequence of
> global warming...."
"WDA" <ball...@adelphia.net> wrote in
> Then how do we know the solution is reducing our GNP by 7%?
7% is a figure used by alarmists. The actual figure is negative. There
is benefit in not burning resources that need no be burned.
Scott Douglas
> fuels now (thus extending their use over a longer time period), or we let
> the free market decide on when they run out (thus resulting in them being
> depleted sooner).
Norton is asking what difference would there be if the rate of carbon
entering the atmosphere is lowered.
The difference is clear. When the rate of carbon entering the atmosphere
is lowered below the rate of accumulation then the temperature rise
attributable to the addiitonal CO2 will stop.
It's as simple as that. But apparently simple concepts confuse simple or
dishonest minds.
Scott Douglas
> Just because the temperature goes up in one part of the world and down
> in another, or there is a few years of draught somewhere doesn't mean
> increasing the cost of gasoline thru taxes is going to make the
> temperature in that area never ever ever change.
Exactly correct. When the average global temperature shows no increase it
can't be stated that the globe is warming.
However the global average temperature is observed to be increasing, and
attributed mostly to the gigatonnes of carbon man is pumping into the
atmosphere.
Scott Douglas
> Look, I'm not an expert on global warming, but I do know there are
> plenty of real smart scientists (much smarter than myself) on both
> sides of the issue (petition of 17,000 qualified scientists on the
> side that there is no convincing evidence of GW compared to petition
> of 2,600 maybe-not-so qualified scientists on the side that immediate
> action is needed to counter GW).
> http://www.heartland.org/studies/ieguide.htm#1.
And as you have been told that petition was a fraud.
Why do you continue to perpetuate a fraud Mr. Norton?
Scott Douglas
> Here you have me confused.
> The permafrost is melting.....OK, we´ll assume this is true. How does
> this mean that CO2 is literally rising from the ground ? I mean it´s
> just water metling right ? And CO2 dissolves ( to some extent ) in
> water....
> I don´t get it. Can you tell me what I´m missing here ?
The permafrost is frozen bog. It has a high organic content composed of
frozen lichen and the like. It melts, it rots and in the process releases
Co2 and methane.
Forkboy2
fraud. I've looked around on the internet and found a few websites that
claimed the names on the petition were all made up, or that the researchers
were tricked into signing something they didn't understand but that doesn't
seem very plausible. If it were a fraud I would think there would be a
pretty detailed examination of the petion somewhere explaining exactly why
it is a fraud. I've also seen claims that the 2,600 signers of the other
petition included just one climatoligist. So it seems to go both ways.
Then there are statments such as:
"Over one hundred climate scientists signed the 1996 Leipzig Declaration,
which stated in part, "there does not exist today a general scientific
consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising levels of
carbon dioxide. On the contrary, most scientists now accept the fact that
actual observations from earth satellites show no climate warming
whatsoever."
Or
"A survey of 36 state climatologists--scientists retained by state
governments to monitor and research climate issues-- conducted in 1997 found
that 58 percent disagreed with the statement, "global warming is for real,"
while only 36 percent agreed. A remarkable 89 percent agreed that "current
science is unable to isolate and measure variations in global temperatures
caused only by man-made factors."
Believe it or not I am trying to look at both side of this issue with an
open mind....I am just a very skeptical person. But I would like to find
out what the real story behind these two petitions is.
Matt
"Scott Douglas" <s_do...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9241E2DF...@216.221.81.119...
Roger Coppock
scientific papers indexed by the key phrase "Global Warming,"
as I have, you will find that about 5 years ago the
scientific consensus switched in favor of anthropogenic global
warming. Today, less than 1 in a hundred peer-reviewed
published scientific papers challenge anthropogenic global
warming. Most of the research now deals with the magnitude
of, or the effects of, the problem, not whether the problem
exists.
--- --- --- Roger
--
A man didn't understand how televisions work, and was convinced that
there must be lots of little men inside the box, manipulating images at
high speed. An engineer explained to him about high frequency
modulations of the electromagnetic spectrum, about transmitters and
receivers, about amplifiers and cathode ray tubes, about scan lines
moving across and down a phosphorescent screen. The man listened to the
engineer with careful attention, nodding his head at every step of the
argument. At the end he pronounced himself satisfied. He really did now
understand how televisions work. "But I expect there are just a few
little men in there, aren't there?"
- Douglas Adams, as retold by Richard Dawkins in "Lament for Douglas"
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
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Joshua Halpern
Forkboy2 wrote:
>
> Please point me to an article or website that shows the petition to be a
> fraud. I've looked around on the internet and found a few websites that
> claimed the names on the petition were all made up, or that the researchers
> were tricked into signing something they didn't understand but that doesn't
> seem very plausible. If it were a fraud I would think there would be a
> pretty detailed examination of the petion somewhere explaining exactly why
> it is a fraud. I've also seen claims that the 2,600 signers of the other
> petition included just one climatoligist. So it seems to go both ways.
>
> Then there are statments such as:
>
> "Over one hundred climate scientists signed the 1996 Leipzig Declaration,
> which stated in part, "there does not exist today a general scientific
> consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising levels of
> carbon dioxide. On the contrary, most scientists now accept the fact that
> actual observations from earth satellites show no climate warming
> whatsoever."
Google is wonderful, you don't have to write things twice
and you can look stuff up... from an old post of mine:
***********************
Interesting. If you cross-correlate the two lists of signers you find that
of the 80 scientists who signed the Leipzig Declaration, only 19 signed the
OISM petition. Since it appears that the OISM petition was only circulated
in North America, that is 19/53 North Americans signed both documents. or
aqbout 36%.
A real strong endorsement....\
**********************
In another letter.........
btw, this explains the difference between the 80 listed
above as the number of signers and the over a hundred in
your letter
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Well, it turns out that might have been a bit prematures. I
had looked at the list of signatures, but had not done a semi-
serious search. I turned up the information below last night;
Since the letter was marked with a copyright, I will excerpt
the relevant sections which have essentially eliminated my
respect for Singer...
***********************
http://naturalscience.com/ns/letters/ns_let08.html
A Comment by Christian Jensen Note 1
From: Christian Jensen
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 17:13:44 +0000
Reply To: c...@dmi.min.dk
To: publ...@naturalscience.com
Subject: Fred Singer's comment on Trenberth's article
How many climate researchers support the
"Leipzig Declaration"?
SNIP....
it prompts scrutiny of the list of over 100
"bone-fide experts" who Singer claims have
signed his so-called Leipzig Declaration
SNIP....
Such an examination has been undertaken by
Danish Broadcasting Company (DR1) journalist,
Xjvind Hesselager (2). In late 1997 he
attempted to contact every signatory (82 at
the time) to the "Leipzig Declaration."
Of 33 European signatories:
there were four he was unable to locate
twelve denied having signed, and of these,
some had not even heard of the "Leipzig Declaration"
many signatories were not qualified in fields
even remotely related to climate research.
They included medical doctors, e.g., H. Metzner;
nuclear scientists, e.g., M.J. Higatsberger; and
one expert on flying insects, i.e., V. Svidersky
some signatories had financial ties to the German
coal industry or the Government of Kuwait (R. Balling and P.
Michaels).
These are hardly reliable authorities on climate research.
Confronted with these facts, Singer removed many from
the list, although not the five mentioned by name above
(Dr. Metzner apparently played a central role in compiling
the list of signatories). Other names were then added to
make a total, today, of more than 100.
Of the present signatories:
twenty-five are TV-meteorologists (here in Denmark,
being a TV-meteorologist does not imply any in-depth
knowledge of climate research)
nine do not appear, from the information provided
in the published list (2), to be involved in relevant
research
fourteen claim the title "Professor," but the list
gives no indication of their academic speciality or
institutional affiliation
forty-two are listed either as an oceanographer,
meteorologist, climatologist, or geophysicist or
as the employee of an institution involved with
climate research. However, in only a minority of cases
is it indicated by the list as currently published
(1) whether these individuals are actually doing
climate research.
SNIP....
Reference
(1) Signatories to the Leipzig Declaration:
http://www.sepp.org/LDsigs.html
(2) A DR1 (Danish Broadcasting Corporation)
report concerning the signatories to
the Leipzig Declaration:
http://www.dr.dk/root/klima/artikler/Bestem/flobby3.htm.
In Danish.
***************************
Josh Halpern
Scott Douglas
> 58 percent disagreed with the statement "global warming is for real,"
Matt, you need to learn how to evaluate your sources.
I found your reference in an on line magazine called Capitalism.com
The article containing the text is entitled
Special Report: Seven Facts About Global Warming - Joseph Bast.
At the end of the article we find the following...
Adapted from The Questionable Science Behind the Global Warming Scare by
Joseph Bast, Heartland Policy Study No. 89 October 30, 1998.
http://www.heartland.org/
Under that I see an anvertisement fot the Ayn Rand Institute, hardly
surprising because the publication Capitalism.com is a publication of the
Ayn Rand Institute.
---
Both the Heartland Institute and the Ayn Rand Institute are funded by
organizations Exxon and Enron whose motivation is to extract the
maximum amount of money from your pocket without conscience and without
care for you or your progeny.
These two organizations are two among several hundred others, like the
Competitive Enterprise Institute, the CATO institute, the Progress in
Freedom Foundation, the Scaif Foundation, the Liberty Institute, etc.
You will find the same cabal of authors regurgitating the same long
disproven propaganda over and over again in the publications of these
criminally deceitful organizations.
These are political organizations, that exist to sponsor a political agenda
rather than promote scientific truth. In fact, these organizations hold
that scientific truth must be oppressed when it doesn't support their tired
political rhetoric.
Consider that the Heritage Foundation wrote glowingly about Enron,
defending the company, claiming that it was acting in the best interest of
the people of California, all the while Enron was breaking the law,
illegally manipulating power prices, and stealing billions from the
California public.
Consider the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) who joined in the game
by regurgitating a claim made by the Greening Earth Society (another
propagand machine funded by the carbon industry) claiming that the reason
for the blackouts in California was not artificial shortages (as was stated
to be the case at the time, and as we now know to be the case), but the
expansion of the internet.
The CEI and the GES were later exposed as liars by scientists from the
Berkely national Science Lab who's opening paragraphs in their response
were as follows....
"In the past year and a half, I have been witness to an extraordinary
event: an analysis based on demonstrably incorrect data and flawed logic
has achieved the status of conventional wisdom, in spite of my and my
colleagues’ best efforts to refute its assertions. The results continue to
be cited by an unsuspecting press, and even by people who ought to know
better.
In May 1999, Mark P. Mills published a report for the Greening Earth
Society (summarized in an article in Forbes Magazine) that attempted to
calculate the "Internet related" portion of electricity use. This report
claimed that electricity use associated with the Internet totaled about 8
percent of all U.S. electricity use in 1998, that the entire “digital
economy” accounted for 13 percent, and that this sector would grow to
consume half of all electricity in the next two decades. Subsequent to the
publication of this report, there was an exchange of technical emails
between Amory Lovins, Joe Romm, Mark Mills, and others
(http://www.rmi.org/images/other/E-MMABLInternet.pdf).
My colleagues and I at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory examined
Mills' calculations of Internet-related electricity use in a technical memo
dated December 9, 1999 (Koomey et al. 1999). We found that Mills
significantly overestimated electricity use, in some cases by more than an
order of magnitude. We adjusted his estimates to reflect measured data and
more accurate assumptions, bringing Mills' overall estimate of
total Internet-related electricity use down by about a factor of eight.
..."
In this very newsgroup we have a member posting here by the name of Andrew
Langer, who was one of the propagand officers for the CEI. Several years
ago, he was caught positing CEI disinformation in this newsgroup in clearly
what was an attempt to dishonestly influence those who come here.
In a nutshell Matt, these organizations exist to lie to you and to the
american public. They are funded by corporate interets who see reduced
government oversite as a means of raping the american people.
You have to ask yourself. Who knows more about science? Dishonest
political propagandists from these right wing propaganda organizations? Or
the worlds scientific community?
It is actually very easy to find out what the scientific community is
thinking on this and other issues. Read the science journals, or in lue of
that read the synopsis of the articles as found on reputable science sites.
nature.com
newscientist.com
sciam.com
unisci.com
So which is it Matt? You going to believe the paid political propagandists
or the scientific community?
Robert Grumbine
Norton <no...@none.com> wrote:
>I think most of us agree that at some point the freely flowing supply of
>cheap fossil fuels is going to dry up (or at least make their use
>prohibitively expensive for things like coal fired power plants and
>automobiles).
There's enough known coal in reserve to take the atmospheric CO2
level to at least 12 times the preindustrial. 'at some point' could
be a rather long time in to the future.
--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences
Lloyd Parker
"Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote:
>Please point me to an article or website that shows the petition to be
a
>fraud.
Scientific American did a piece on it a few years back.
> I've looked around on the internet and found a few websites that
>claimed the names on the petition were all made up, or that the
researchers
>were tricked into signing something they didn't understand but that
doesn't
>seem very plausible. If it were a fraud I would think there would be
a
>pretty detailed examination of the petion somewhere explaining exactly
why
>it is a fraud. I've also seen claims that the 2,600 signers of the
other
>petition included just one climatoligist. So it seems to go both
ways.
>
>Then there are statments such as:
>
>"Over one hundred climate scientists signed the 1996 Leipzig
Declaration,
>which stated in part, "there does not exist today a general scientific
>consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising
levels of
>carbon dioxide. On the contrary, most scientists now accept the fact
that
>actual observations from earth satellites show no climate warming
>whatsoever."
I bet the Institute of Creation Research makes similar sweeping claims
about thousands of scientists who don't support evolution.
>
>Or
>
>"A survey of 36 state climatologists--scientists retained by state
>governments to monitor and research climate issues-- conducted in 1997
found
>that 58 percent disagreed with the statement, "global warming is for
real,"
>while only 36 percent agreed. A remarkable 89 percent agreed that
"current
>science is unable to isolate and measure variations in global
temperatures
>caused only by man-made factors."
And of course, we've learned a lot in the last 5 years. This is like
saying, "In 1930, most scientists didn't believe in relativity."
>
>Believe it or not I am trying to look at both side of this issue with
an
>open mind....I am just a very skeptical person. But I would like to
find
>out what the real story behind these two petitions is.
>
>Matt
>
Then get off your duff, go to a college library, and look at some
scientific journals and books!
Steve Schulin
news:<3D25422D...@adnc.com>...
> ... If you look at abstracts of
> scientific papers indexed by the key phrase "Global Warming,"
> as I have, you will find that about 5 years ago the
> scientific consensus switched in favor of anthropogenic global
> warming. Today, less than 1 in a hundred peer-reviewed
> published scientific papers challenge anthropogenic global
> warming. Most of the research now deals with the magnitude
> of, or the effects of, the problem, not whether the problem
> exists.
>
> --- --- --- Roger
>
Chambers and Brain, of the Centre for Environmental Change and
Quaternary Research at the University of Gloucestershire recently
published a paper describing their research into the shifts in climate
journal publications and what those shifts mean [Paradigm shifts in
late-Holocene climatology? The Holocene 12(2):239-249, 1 March 2002].
They come to conclusions that seem quite contrary to yours. Here's the
abstract:
The climatic consequences of major increases in the concentration of
atmospheric carbon dioxide were calculated over 100 years ago, but
only during the last two decades have the effects of human-induced
increases in various atmospheric gas concentrations become a concern
of a wide range of scientists. The near-century delay between the
propounding of the theory and the widespread recognition of the
consequences for climate of continuing human activities implies a
recent shift in either the perspectives or in the interests of
researchers. Here we use citation indices to discern a major shift in
the focus of research into climatic change. Scientific findings in the
1970s and early 1980s are identified as a trigger to the development
of wider scientific concern over human-induced climatic warming, while
the period from 1988 to 1991 at first sight appears to represent a
major paradigm shift. However, it is suggested here that an inferred
change in scientific emphasis was caused primarily by a combination of
(1) new evidence from ocean and ice cores, particularly concerning the
relationship between past atmospheric gas concentrations and climatic
change; (2) the availability and application of new tools, notably a
new generation of General Circulation Models (GCMs); (3) attribution
of human causation for other environmental problems; (4) a changing
science research agenda, driven by political and funding
considerations; and (5) the contemporary recording of apparently
increased 'global' temperatures, which reversed a previously recorded
cooling trend. We caution that the pre-eminence and longevity of the
'global warming' thesis is vulnerable either to meteorological data
that do not fit with model scenarios, or to the rise or resurrection
of other notions on the primary forcing factors in climatic change. To
obtain a clear perspective on late-Holocene climatic change, it will
be necessary to evaluate palaeoclimate data that derive from a wide
range of complementary sources - sedimentological, biological,
archaeological and documentary - and to compare the magnitude, rate
and frequency of past climatic changes implied in those data with
recorded twentieth-century 'global' changes and projected
twenty-first-century scenarios.
Ian St. John
"Steve Schulin" <nucl...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:fff3fd40.0207...@posting.google.com...
> Roger Coppock <rcop...@adnc.com> wrote, in part, in message
> news:<3D25422D...@adnc.com>...
>
> > ... If you look at abstracts of
> > scientific papers indexed by the key phrase "Global Warming,"
> > as I have, you will find that about 5 years ago the
> > scientific consensus switched in favor of anthropogenic global
> > warming. Today, less than 1 in a hundred peer-reviewed
> > published scientific papers challenge anthropogenic global
> > warming. Most of the research now deals with the magnitude
> > of, or the effects of, the problem, not whether the problem
> > exists.
> >
> > --- --- --- Roger
> >
>
> Chambers and Brain, of the Centre for Environmental Change and
> Quaternary Research at the University of Gloucestershire recently
> published a paper describing their research into the shifts in climate
> journal publications and what those shifts mean [Paradigm shifts in
> late-Holocene climatology? The Holocene 12(2):239-249, 1 March 2002].
>
> They come to conclusions that seem quite contrary to yours. Here's the
> abstract:
>
> The climatic consequences of major increases in the concentration of
> atmospheric carbon dioxide were calculated over 100 years ago, but
> only during the last two decades have the effects of human-induced
> increases in various atmospheric gas concentrations become a concern
> of a wide range of scientists.
So the basic idea of CO2 or other GHGs increasing global temperatures has
been around a long time
OTOH, there was no indication that CO2 was not fully sequestered until
measurements were made that indicated a progressive rise and the question
became. If CO2 increase can cause warming, and CO2 levels are increasing, is
there a consequent change in the global temperaure?
Note: Climate consequences? Why are the authors including predictions of
ACC, where Arehennius only calculated the GW?? Why is this given this way?
The issues of GW are totally separate form issues of consequent climate
change.
> The near-century delay
between the
> propounding of the theory and the widespread recognition of the
> consequences for climate of continuing human activities implies a
> recent shift in either the perspectives or in the interests of
> researchers.
No. Arhennius only predicted what IS EXPECTED TO occur in a higher CO2
environment, based on thermodynamics. Interest was spurred by the discovery
that the CO2 levels WERE increasing. Something of a duh... not impressed by
this 'analysis'.
Note: Again emphasising the Arhennius theory in relationship to
'consequences for climate', which have nothing to do with his calculations
of thernal equilibrium.
> Here we use citation indices to discern a major shift
in
> the focus of research into climatic change. Scientific findings in the
> 1970s and early 1980s are identified as a trigger to the development
> of wider scientific concern over human-induced climatic warming, while
> the period from 1988 to 1991 at first sight appears to represent a
> major paradigm shift.
The shift was from one of expecting but being unable to completely confirm
GW to one where the 'signal' was temtatively found, but the attribution ot
GHG emissions was being challenged. This led to later analysis for solar,
aerosol, and other forces. It was the slow process of weeding out the
irrelevant ideas and determining the extent of the effect of the relevant
ones that took time.
> However, it is suggested here that an
inferred
> change in scientific emphasis was caused primarily by a combination of
> (1) new evidence from ocean and ice cores, particularly concerning the
> relationship between past atmospheric gas concentrations and climatic
> change; (2) the availability and application of new tools, notably a
> new generation of General Circulation Models (GCMs); (3) attribution
> of human causation for other environmental problems; (4) a changing
> science research agenda, driven by political and funding
> considerations; and (5) the contemporary recording of apparently
> increased 'global' temperatures, which reversed a previously recorded
> cooling trend.
I fail to see what his 'suggestion' is pointing to. I DO note that this is
'opinion'..
Number 1 is of course just part of the puzzle. There was no direct link
between CO2 levels and temperature in the record, nor could the cause of the
CO2 increase be industrial so it begs the question, which came first, the
temperature change or the CO2 level changes. This is still somewhat
irrelevant to the GW issue.
Number 2: is correct, to the degree that GCMs gave us a tool to study the
one factor, how much warming to expect. The other use of GCMs was to try to
find common and consistent patterns in responses to GW on climate This last,
however, wasn't part of establishing GW.
Number 3: Huh? That change happened in the 60's and 70's with the rise of
the environmental movement and the cities choking in their own smog.
Number 4: The usual complete whooeyy.. More funds were allocated to the
study due to more interest in the consequences and the setting up of
intergovernmental bodies to study the situation. The ideas that it was
*driven* by politics instead of politics being *driven* by concern is the
usual ass backwards logic of the anti-science crowd.
Number 5 is, of course correct, as previously noted. There would be very
little work done on the GW issue if they had *failed* to find a warming.
"the most convincing place for a lie is between two truths". I see that this
has been expanded to include spin doctoring and whooey.
> We caution that the pre-eminence and longevity of the
> 'global warming' thesis is vulnerable either to meteorological data
> that do not fit with model scenarios, or to the rise or resurrection
> of other notions on the primary forcing factors in climatic change.
Science is always vulnerable to new evidence. The lack of such evidence
under intense and well funded scrutiny by some fairly competent scientists
means that a major change in the analysis is only 'theoretical'. Expect it
right after you see a brick building falling upstairs.
>
To
> obtain a clear perspective on late-Holocene climatic change, it will
> be necessary to evaluate palaeoclimate data that derive from a wide
> range of complementary sources - sedimentological, biological,
> archaeological and documentary - and to compare the magnitude, rate
> and frequency of past climatic changes implied in those data with
> recorded twentieth-century 'global' changes and projected
> twenty-first-century scenarios.
Now that is crap. The relevance of paleoclimatology to CO2 driven GW is
non-existent. Nor is the climate of the 55 milllion years ago relevant to an
earth with continents drifted into different positions, ice caps ( a recent
phenomenon ) and continents which break up equatorial currents ( closing of
the gap between North and South America for example. There is not comparable
*recent* change in CO2 levels is there? By recent I am talking about since
the closing of the continents and the buildup of the icecap, i.e. similar
geography to today.
Steve? How many times are you going to post this crap? Should I save this to
cut and paste a response?
Note: They make suggestions, but do not really have a leg to stand on in
science terms. The opinion is generally that the consensus started about
1992, showed up in the 1995 IPCC report and was stregthened by the 2000 IPCC
report which included endorsements from all major science academies, some in
defiance of their own government. As far as I can see, this 'op-ed' piece
has no solid basis in science and what they did include ( Arhennius )
confused his thermodynamics ( GW ) with 'climate change'. Very not
impressive.
Forkboy2
I got the information directly from www.heartland.org, not capitalism.com.
Heartland.org is very up front about where their funding comes from and they
claim about 1/3 is from corporate sponsers. In fact they publish a list of
their corporate sponsers on their website (which does include Exxon, but not
Enron). I don't want to get into a big arguement over which foundation is
spreading the truth and which is spreading propaganda....let's just say they
all have their own opinions. I think we can assume there are propaganda
machines on both sides of the issue. I'm hesitant to believe any of them
entirely, but I must admit to having a predisposition for not believing
doomsayers. I do work in the environmental field and hear exaggerations all
the time on from people speaking on environmental issues they really don't
understand (for example, everyone thinks asbestos is banned)
Nevertheless, I'm still stuck on the petition by the Oregon Institue of
Science and Medicine. They have broken their petition down into a sub-list
of 2,660 Physicist, Geophysicist, Climatologists, Meteorologist,
Oceanographser and Environmental Scientists
(http://www.oism.org/pproject/a_sci.htm) and another sub-list of over 5,000
Chemistry, Biology and Life Sciencers
(http://www.oism.org/pproject/b_sci.htm). Plus another 10,000 or so
"scientists". There has been several comments in this thread that this
petition is a fraud but no one has shown me why it is a fraud. Someone said
Scientific American did an expose on it, but I searched the Scientific
American website for past articles on Global Warming and couldn't find
anything specific to the petition. OISM also claims to have verified over
95% of the signatures and that the cost of the petition was paid for
entirely by private dontations and did not include any funding from sources
from within the coal, oil, natural gas or related fields
(http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm). If this is all a big lie, I
would think the the pro-GW side would have a detailed examination of the lie
on a website somewhere. I would also think the people whose names appear on
the petition would stand up and speak the truth if they were somehow tricked
into signing it or the petition didn't represent their true opinion on the
subject.
I'm not trying to say GW isn't occuring as I'm no where near qualified to
make such a judgement. What I am trying to find out if there really is a
consesus in the scientific community that the the effects of GW, if left
unchecked, are going to lead to climatalogical disasters on a planetary
scale. The OISM petition would seem to dispute that claim.
Matt
"Scott Douglas" <s_do...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns924241A1C...@216.221.81.119...
Thomas Palm
> Nevertheless, I'm still stuck on the petition by the Oregon Institue of
> Science and Medicine.
Why does it matter that much to you? Petitions are a dime a dozen.
> They have broken their petition down into a sub-list
> of 2,660 Physicist, Geophysicist, Climatologists, Meteorologist,
> Oceanographser and Environmental Scientists
> (http://www.oism.org/pproject/a_sci.htm) and another sub-list of over 5,000
> Chemistry, Biology and Life Sciencers
> (http://www.oism.org/pproject/b_sci.htm). Plus another 10,000 or so
> "scientists".
Do you have any idea of how many people who might label themself
"scientists"? You could easily get this number of names on a petition
for example denying evolution, if you just wanted to spend enough
money on it.
Try to take a random sample in the list. Pick some people with unusual
names and search for them on the web. If they are scientists they should
almost certainly be found, together with some indication of their field
of expertise. That way you can decide for yourself how relevant they
are.
Even better. Go to a library and look in some scientific journals
such as Nature and Science and see what kind of articles they publish.
The truth in science is not determined by polls, but who has enough
facts to get his ideas published. It didn't matter that lots of
scientists didn't believe Einstein was right at first. He could show
how his theory made sense, they couldn't disprove it.
> There has been several comments in this thread that this
> petition is a fraud but no one has shown me why it is a fraud.
Call it a fraud or not, but it was clearly made to collect as many
signatories using whatever dirty tricks required. It was sent to
_a lot_ of people, by a former president of the NSA including an
article that was formatted to look as if it had been published in
their journal while in reality it is propagandistic junk, not fit
to publish anywhere. (Although supposedly it was eventually published
in the "journal of borderline science".
Of course you will get some people to sign just because they don't
know anything about the subject, but assume that Sietz does and
that the supposed review article gives a fair account of the science.
You will get another bunch to sign because they dislike the Kyoto
treaty for political reasons, regardless of what they think about
the science.
> I'm not trying to say GW isn't occuring as I'm no where near qualified to
> make such a judgement. What I am trying to find out if there really is a
> consesus in the scientific community that the the effects of GW, if left
> unchecked, are going to lead to climatalogical disasters on a planetary
> scale. The OISM petition would seem to dispute that claim.
Scientists doesn't agree on _anything_. They make a living out of
questioning established truths. You want to find people who claim
gravity is a repulsive force, sure, I've met a couple. Does that
mean we don't have consensus on gravity being attractive? If you
want to be strict, we haven't, but usually the term is used to
indicate a large majority.
Thomas Palm
> The climatic consequences of major increases in the concentration of
> atmospheric carbon dioxide were calculated over 100 years ago, but
> only during the last two decades have the effects of human-induced
> increases in various atmospheric gas concentrations become a concern
> of a wide range of scientists. The near-century delay between the
> propounding of the theory and the widespread recognition of the
> consequences for climate of continuing human activities implies a
> recent shift in either the perspectives or in the interests of
> researchers.
...or in the accuracy of scientific instruments. We didn't even know
that CO2 was actually increasing at any appreciable rate until Keeling
measured the concentration accurately in 1960.
> We caution that the pre-eminence and longevity of the
> 'global warming' thesis is vulnerable either to meteorological data
> that do not fit with model scenarios, or to the rise or resurrection
> of other notions on the primary forcing factors in climatic change.
Big surprise. They admit it is a science, and like all scientific
theories possible to disprove through observations that doesn't
fit.
> To
> obtain a clear perspective on late-Holocene climatic change, it will
> be necessary to evaluate palaeoclimate data that derive from a wide
> range of complementary sources - sedimentological, biological,
> archaeological and documentary - and to compare the magnitude, rate
> and frequency of past climatic changes implied in those data with
> recorded twentieth-century 'global' changes and projected
> twenty-first-century scenarios.
"Hey, we want some of the money that goes to climate research too"
Well, they can have it. They are correct that understanding past
climate change is important to understand the present change. The
more climate data we have, the better we will be able to calibrate
our models of the climate.
This paper of yours does in no way contradict Roger's statement,
although some paleoclimatologists do seem unwilling to admit that
humans can change climate, or even study the subject well. It's
lika a historian who thinks everything that happened after the
fall of Rome (or whetever his subject) is irrelevant.
Forkboy2
fraud. Again, all I'm trying to figure out is if there really truely is
this consensus of scientists with applicable backgrounds that believe the
effects of GW, if left unchecked, are going to lead to climatalogical
these 2,660 Physicist, Geophysicist, Climatologists, Meteorologist,
Oceanographser and Environmental Scientists come from? That is a lot of
scientists that are willing to put their name and professional reputation on
the line in speaking out against the doomsayers. That's a lot of scientific
opinions just to discount outright.
> Try to take a random sample in the list. Pick some people with unusual
> names and search for them on the web. If they are scientists they should
> almost certainly be found, together with some indication of their field
> of expertise. That way you can decide for yourself how relevant they
> are.
I have a feeling that this has already been attempted by the opponents of
the petition. If the signers weren't reputable I'm sure it would be
plastered all over a pro GW web site somewhere. Especially since there have
been claims made against the expertise of the signers of the pro-GW
petition.
> Call it a fraud or not, but it was clearly made to collect as many
> signatories using whatever dirty tricks required. It was sent to
> _a lot_ of people, by a former president of the NSA including an
> article that was formatted to look as if it had been published in
> their journal while in reality it is propagandistic junk, not fit
> to publish anywhere. (Although supposedly it was eventually published
> in the "journal of borderline science".
So they were all tricked into signing it. Ya, because those people with PHD
behind their name have a real problem with their reading comprehension
skills. The letter probably went something like this: "Hi Dr. So and So,
please read this article and then discard everything you already know about
GW and put your name and professional reputation on the line by making an
affermitive statement about your thoughts on GW based on this article."
Maybe you're right and that is how it happened.
Matt
"Thomas Palm" <thoma...@chello.se> wrote in message
news:3D2694E1...@chello.se...
Ian St. John
"Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote in message
news:VjxV8.295046$_j6.14...@bin3.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com...
>
> In other words you don't know of anything that shows that petition to be a
> fraud.
It is a fraud both in the 'junk-science' attached and in presenting the
petition as being signed by 'scientists'.
> Again, all I'm trying to figure out is if there really truely
is
> this consensus of scientists with applicable backgrounds that believe the
> effects of GW, if left unchecked, are going to lead to climatalogical
> disasters on a planetary scale.
Why? There is a consensus on GW. Read the www.ipcc.ch report. After that it
gets hairy.
There is some concensus on some of the risks based on GCM modelling in the
IPCC.
-Observed- <=> Confidence in Observed Changes:
-Projected- <=> Confidence in Projected changes:(a)
1: Higher maximum temperatures and more Very hot days over nearly all land
areas
-Observed-: Likely
-Projected-: Very likely
2: Higher minimum temperatures, fewer Very cold days and frost days over
nearly all land areas
-Observed-: Very likely
-Projected-: Very likely
3: Reduced diurnal temperature range over most land areas
-Observed-: Very likely
-Projected-: Very likely
4: Increase of heat index over land areas.
-Observed-: Likely over many areas
-Projected-: Very likely over most areas
5: More intense precipitation events.(b)
-Observed-: Likely over many N.A. mid-high latitude land areas.
-Projected-: Very likely over many areas.
6: Increased summer continental drying and associated risk of drought.
-Observed-: Likely in a few areas
-Projected-: Likely over most mid-latitude continental interiors. Possible
elsewhere.
7: Increase in tropical cyclone peak wind intensities.(c)
-Observed-: Not observed
-Projected-: Likely over some areas.
8: Increase in tropical cyclone mean and peak precipitation intensities.(c)
-Observed-: N/A
-Projected-: Likely over some areas.
a) For more details see Chapter 2 (observations) and Chapter 9, 10
(projections).
b) For other areas, there are either insufficient data or conflicting
analyses.
c) Past and future changes in tropical cyclone location and frequency are
uncertain.
And there is a general unease about the risk of triggering a major climate
event such as shutdown of the THC ( leading to a severe climate in Europe )
flooding from melting ice sheets ( Greenland ), severe storms, etc.
What level of damage do you require for 'disaster'?
> If there is a consensus then
where did
> these 2,660 Physicist, Geophysicist, Climatologists, Meteorologist,
> Oceanographser and Environmental Scientists come from?
Consensus comes with time. The climate scientists reached a consensus back
around 1992. There is no consensus among meteorologists, geologists,
dentists, or the general public. As pointed out, many of those whoi are said
to have signed it when it came out would not sign it now (having joined the
consensus), didn't sign it then, or signed it based on political
convictions, not science.
It remains a fraud in terms of illustrating a lack of consensus among
climate scientists. If you want to establish that consensus, take a survey
of published and peer reviewed literature and see how much takes GW as a
fact vs how many dispute it. No amount of politcial voting will establish an
'anti-consensus' on the science. To establish that you need to find data
which is inconsistent with the theory. Only one active scientist with
credentials and respect in the climate sciences is doing this, and Lindzen
has not come out with anything substantial yet.
>
That is a lot of
> scientists that are willing to put their name and professional reputation
on
> the line in speaking out against the doomsayers. That's a lot of
scientific
> opinions just to discount outright.
So, exactly what scientific peer review was made and what science journal
was it published in? None??? I guess they didn't risk their scientific
reputation after all! That is based on published works and most ( amost
all?) of these people don't publish climate research anyway. Many that are
in the climate research field aren't pbulishing much now.
>
> > Try to take a random sample in the list. Pick some people with unusual
> > names and search for them on the web. If they are scientists they should
> > almost certainly be found, together with some indication of their field
> > of expertise. That way you can decide for yourself how relevant they
> > are.
>
> I have a feeling that this has already been attempted by the opponents of
> the petition. If the signers weren't reputable I'm sure it would be
> plastered all over a pro GW web site somewhere. Especially since there
have
> been claims made against the expertise of the signers of the pro-GW
> petition.
What 'pro GW petition'?? I know of none. The GW science is established by
thousands of individual researchers with peer reviewed articles, the work of
which was summarized in the IPCC reports.There was never any 'petition' is
establishing GW. There was science, not politics.
>
> > Call it a fraud or not, but it was clearly made to collect as many
> > signatories using whatever dirty tricks required. It was sent to
> > _a lot_ of people, by a former president of the NSA including an
> > article that was formatted to look as if it had been published in
> > their journal while in reality it is propagandistic junk, not fit
> > to publish anywhere. (Although supposedly it was eventually published
> > in the "journal of borderline science".
>
> So they were all tricked into signing it. Ya, because those people with
PHD
> behind their name have a real problem with their reading comprehension
> skills.
I can guarantee that there are at least 2660 PHd scientists in the world
that have very poor reading skills either due to senility, mental health
problems, or a lack of understanding of the climate field combined with a
strong political conviction leading to a opinionated blindness. The point is
that it was a political, not a peer reviewed science statement.
> The letter probably went something like this: "Hi Dr. So and So,
> please read this article and then discard everything you already know
about
> GW and put your name and professional reputation on the line by making an
> affermitive statement about your thoughts on GW based on this article."
> Maybe you're right and that is how it happened.
Nah, it really went.
"GW is utter bunkum and will cost you billions, ripped out of your
pocketbook by incompetent climate scientists and government tax grabbers
that jsut want to bankrupt America. Please stop this blatant attack on our
noble land by signing this petition. "
Double points if you work for coal, oil or gas companies... They employ a
lot of scientists of various field, few in climatology of course, but then
the petititon doesn't ask them to examine the established climate science
first, but presents a whole lot of distorions that may convince those not
familiar with the field.
Thomas Palm
>
> In other words you don't know of anything that shows that petition to be a
> fraud.
I know enough to convince me that it is irrelevant. Obviously you are
desperate in believing it has something important to say. Why do
you not look in scientific journals and check what reputable scientitific
organisations have to say instead?
The petition you refer to was considered enough of a fraud to make NAS
feel the need to distance itself from it:
http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/fc340309c47a1e43852567460067595e/cd328b7ca68b1f35852567b3005bb5e0?OpenDocument
> If there is a consensus then where did
> these 2,660 Physicist, Geophysicist, Climatologists, Meteorologist,
> Oceanographser and Environmental Scientists come from?
There are hundreds of thousands of people with these qualifications
in the world. The sample is not that impressive.
> That is a lot of
> scientists that are willing to put their name and professional reputation on
> the line in speaking out against the doomsayers.
What professional reputation? Do you think anyone care enough to ruin
someones career because they signed a silly petition? Who would even
find out among all those names if someone you knew had signed?
> That's a lot of scientific
> opinions just to discount outright.
You have absolutely no idea what part of the petition those people
agreed on, and what knowledge about the subject they have.
> > Try to take a random sample in the list. Pick some people with unusual
> > names and search for them on the web. If they are scientists they should
> > almost certainly be found, together with some indication of their field
> > of expertise. That way you can decide for yourself how relevant they
> > are.
>
> I have a feeling that this has already been attempted by the opponents of
> the petition. If the signers weren't reputable I'm sure it would be
> plastered all over a pro GW web site somewhere. Especially since there have
> been claims made against the expertise of the signers of the pro-GW
> petition.
You are right, it has been done. The result was a list of nobodys.
You can do a search on old messages in sci.environment to find that
and a lot of other discussions about this petition that has been
chopped to pieces on numerous occasions, but I figured it might
be more illuminating for you to do it yourself. After all, if someone
else picked names you can't really know if they were random or not,
can you?
Here is a link to another site with info about the OISM petition:
http://www.scottchurchimages.com/gwcc6.html
> > Call it a fraud or not, but it was clearly made to collect as many
> > signatories using whatever dirty tricks required. It was sent to
> > _a lot_ of people, by a former president of the NSA including an
> > article that was formatted to look as if it had been published in
> > their journal while in reality it is propagandistic junk, not fit
> > to publish anywhere. (Although supposedly it was eventually published
> > in the "journal of borderline science".
>
> So they were all tricked into signing it. Ya, because those people with PHD
> behind their name have a real problem with their reading comprehension
> skills. The letter probably went something like this: "Hi Dr. So and So,
> please read this article and then discard everything you already know about
> GW and put your name and professional reputation on the line by making an
> affermitive statement about your thoughts on GW based on this article."
> Maybe you're right and that is how it happened.
Most PhD:s don't know anything about climate science and we don't even
know how many of the people who signed have the claimed title anyway.
Just because you have a fancy title doesn't mean you are any less gullible
than anyone else, and only a small fraction of all that received this
petition signed it.
Now, some of the people did know what they signed, and my opinion of for
exemple Richard Lindzen dropped a lot when his name was found there.
Being critical of the common view on climate science is one thing, signing
a petition that argues that more CO2 is good for us something quite different.
Ken Clement
>
> The difference is clear. When the rate of carbon entering the atmosphere
> is lowered below the rate of accumulation then the temperature rise
>
> It's as simple as that. But apparently simple concepts confuse simple or
> dishonest minds.
So, if I understand your assertions we have two falsifiable
hypothesis:
#1. The Rise in the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is due
primarily to human activities - principally burning fossil fuels.
#2. The apparent rise in the average temperature of the Earth is due
to rising CO2 levels.
--
#1 is falsifiable because a measured leveling off or decrease in CO2
levels not simultaneous with decreasing relevant human activities
would be a contradiction.
#2 is falsifiable because a subsequent cooling off not tied to
decreasing CO2 levels would be a contradiction.
--
These resilience of these hypothesis is what will eventually settle
the matter. For now, the skeptic in me is still skeptical about most
environmentalist claims.
A bit of "glass-house" advice: the rhetoric about simple or dishonest
minds does nothing to buttress your argument, nor to make an
unconvinced audience sympathetic to your viewpoints, nor does it
contribute to your personal credibility. It's a luxury that can be
dispensed with.
Thomas Palm
>
> Scott Douglas <s_do...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> ...
> >
> > The difference is clear. When the rate of carbon entering the atmosphere
> > is lowered below the rate of accumulation then the temperature rise
> > attributable to the addiitonal[sic] CO2 will stop.
> >
> > It's as simple as that. But apparently simple concepts confuse simple or
> > dishonest minds.
>
> So, if I understand your assertions we have two falsifiable
> hypothesis:
>
> #1. The Rise in the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is due
> primarily to human activities - principally burning fossil fuels.
>
> #2. The apparent rise in the average temperature of the Earth is due
> to rising CO2 levels.
>
> --
> #1 is falsifiable because a measured leveling off or decrease in CO2
> levels not simultaneous with decreasing relevant human activities
> would be a contradiction.
It is also shown to be true by using isotope analysis of the atmoshpere,
which shows that the apparent age of the carbon has increased (less
C14). This is to be expected as we add a lot of old carbon from fossil
fuels.
#1 is also obvious. Just measure the amount of CO2 emitted and the
amount of CO2 accumulating in the atmoshpere. You will find that the
problem that needs solving is why at the moment not all of the CO2 we
emit stays in the atmosphere.
> #2 is falsifiable because a subsequent cooling off not tied to
> decreasing CO2 levels would be a contradiction.
So how long does the warming have to go on before you are convinced?
That the theory hasn't yet been falsified doesn't prove it is
correct, and that will be true no matter how much climate change we
see.
Considering whether a theory is falsifiable is a good criterium
to decide whether or not it is science, but it doesn't say much
about whether it is a good description of reality. To do that one
has to look at all different theories that claims to describe
reality and chose the one that fits best and does so with the
least amount of special assumptions.
#1 would then have to be considered true simply because there is
no competing explanation with any shred of credibility. #2 would
have to be considered very likely because it is based on other
well established scientific theories and that there is no competing
theory that can explain the warming as well.
> These resilience of these hypothesis is what will eventually settle
> the matter. For now, the skeptic in me is still skeptical about most
> environmentalist claims.
Being a sceptic is fine, but in situations with limited information
and where our actions have consequences we often can't wait until
all the evidence is in. Waiting is an action that has consequences
too.
The general who gets a report that the enemy is approaching may be
sceptical that the report is true, but he ignores it at his own
risk.
Scott Douglas
> So, if I understand your assertions we have two falsifiable
> hypothesis:
>
> #1. The Rise in the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is due
> primarily to human activities - principally burning fossil fuels.
Which is proven by the study of the isotopic concentration of Carbon and
other trace gasses associated with the various sources of carbon. Also
proven by the tracking of Co2 output with estimates of the amount of carbon
entering into the atmospehre from the activities of man.
> #2. The apparent rise in the average temperature of the Earth is due
> to rising CO2 levels.
A fact which is accepted by the consensus of the worlds scientists.
But to be more clear. The consensus holds that at least the majority of
he observed warming of the earth is caused by the increase in CO2 levels.
k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> #1 is falsifiable because a measured leveling off or decrease in CO2
> levels not simultaneous with decreasing relevant human activities
> would be a contradiction.
All other things being equal.
k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> #2 is falsifiable because a subsequent cooling off not tied to
> decreasing CO2 levels would be a contradiction.
Not necessarily. All other factors have to be accounted for.
It is a basic consequence of radiative physics that if you add an
insulating layer to a surface that is being heated, the surface will
increae it's temperature.
k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> These resilience of these hypothesis is what will eventually settle
> the matter. For now, the skeptic in me is still skeptical about most
> environmentalist claims.
Then you are skeptical about most scientific claims as well. Even when
they are claimed by the consensus of the worlds scientists.
Quite pathetic.
Joshua Halpern
Forkboy2 wrote:
SNIP......
> Nevertheless, I'm still stuck on the petition by the Oregon Institue of
> Science and Medicine. They have broken their petition down into a sub-list
> of 2,660 Physicist, Geophysicist, Climatologists, Meteorologist,
> Oceanographser and Environmental Scientists
> (http://www.oism.org/pproject/a_sci.htm) and another sub-list of over 5,000
> Chemistry, Biology and Life Sciencers
> (http://www.oism.org/pproject/b_sci.htm). Plus another 10,000 or so
> "scientists". There has been several comments in this thread that this
> petition is a fraud but no one has shown me why it is a fraud. Someone said
> Scientific American did an expose on it, but I searched the Scientific
> American website for past articles on Global Warming and couldn't find
> anything specific to the petition. OISM also claims to have verified over
> 95% of the signatures and that the cost of the petition was paid for
> entirely by private dontations and did not include any funding from sources
> from within the coal, oil, natural gas or related fields
> (http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm). If this is all a big lie, I
> would think the the pro-GW side would have a detailed examination of the lie
> on a website somewhere. I would also think the people whose names appear on
> the petition would stand up and speak the truth if they were somehow tricked
> into signing it or the petition didn't represent their true opinion on the
> subject.
Again, googling (we should just put the damn responses in
a FAQ somewhere. This is about the tenth time someone has
dropped in to give us the news, not).
********
Really? I DID check the list out...I started with the As..and believe me
the number of those with any kind of qualifications in the field was almost
negative (exaggeration for effect). I have attached my first and last
post on the subject. I actually got up above 200, but the nature
of the results did not change.
\: Over 2600 of the signers are "physicists, geophysicists, climatologists,
: meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists who are
: especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on the
: Earth's atmosphere and climate." See http://www.oism.org/pproject/a_sci.htm
: for their signatures.
Andy, I looked at that list also. There were again, very few who
had any relevant qualifications. There were a lot of physicists
(easy to check via the APS membership book), nuclear, solid
state types etc. The number of people working in atmospheric
science or related fields was still very small. Couple of rock
hunters, etc.
Let me ask you. Pick any letter in the alphabet, pick any of the
lists (general, physicists, chemists, etc....) Tell us how many
of any contiguous number of signatures above 50 are experts in
any relevant area listing the area BTW, tell us also the name
of the list, and the name that you started at.
josh halpern
FROM www.deja.com
>> Forum: sci.environment
>> Thread: Who are the 17000 petition....
>> Message 6 of 12
Re: Who are the 17000 petition....
Date: 05/08/1998
Author: Joshua Halpern <j...@IDT.NET>
Joshua Halpern <j...@IDT.NET> wrote:
: Joshua Halpern <j...@IDT.NET> wrote:
The update you are all not waiting for. Soon to
be dreaded as much as Nudd's Hanson Temperature
vs. Time plot.....
The list grows to 150 examined (30-40 a day is
all I intend to do). Previous caveats apply. I
have used Yahoo to identify the positions of
people with the same name as those on the list,
but they are not necessarily the same people.
I am also reformulating the list to make is slightly more compact.
: : In the first 150, I found no meteorologists, atmospheric
: : scientists or climatologists. I did find:
Deans of Pharmacy (1) Industrial Engineering Technology (1), Arts &
Sciences (1)
Public Health Ret. (1)
Chairs of Materials Science (1) Environmental Biology (1), Civil Eng.
(1),
Orthopedics
Professors (13) Associate Prof. (3), Asst. Prof. (1) Inst.(1)
Adjunct(1) of
1 Anesthesiology
1 Biology and Bioethics, publishes on the ethics of abortion
1 Biophysics
1 Cell Biology
2 Chemistry (theoretical Physical, ret.)
1 Civil Engineering (water resources)
3 EE (comp. arch., comp. sci., robotics, devices
1 Geology (paleo.)
1 Materials Science (metallurgist)
1 ME (forest fires)
1 Operations Research
1 Orthopedics
1 Periodontics
1 Physics (particle)
1 Psychology
1 Prof. of Science who was a co-founder of the Creation Research
Society
: : Schools were U of Florida, Yale, U of Minnesota, U. of Il. at Champaign
: : Urbana, Virginia Commonwealth, Pacific Union, U of Missouri, West Point,
: Purdue, U of Colorado Boulder, Eastern Illinois University, PA
College of
Technology, U of Washington, Montana State, Yeshiva, FDU, Western
Mich., Northern Arizona, U
Del., UCSD, Penn State Hershey Medical Center
also
1 Aeronautics Engineer (AIAA Fellow)
2 Biologist (wildlife, botanist
2 Business Consultant (software
4 Chemist (Texaco, candy, polymer, laser ablation )
1 Chiropractor
2 Civil Engineer (concrete
3 Computer Engineer (software
1 Dentist
1 Editor (deputy Science,)
1 Electrical Engineer (data trans.
1 Environmental Engineer (wastewater, health&safety P&G) 2 Executives
(VP Gen. Dyn.
Aeronautics, CTO Internet)
1 Extension Agent (horticulture
3 Medical scientists
1 Materials Scientist (coatings)
1 Mathematics educator
1 Osteopath
2 Physicist (medical)
2 Physician
1 Program Director (NCI/NIH)
2 Software consultant
1 MCI local services director
80 unidentified.
: : Anyone else want to play?
: : josh halpern josh halpernForum: sci.environment
>> Thread: Who are the 17000 petition....
Joshua Halpern
Forkboy2 wrote:
SNIP.....
>
> Nevertheless, I'm still stuck on the petition by the Oregon Institue of
> Science and Medicine. They have broken their petition down into a sub-list
> of 2,660 Physicist, Geophysicist, Climatologists, Meteorologist,
> Oceanographser and Environmental Scientists
> (http://www.oism.org/pproject/a_sci.htm) and another sub-list of over 5,000
> Chemistry, Biology and Life Sciencers
> (http://www.oism.org/pproject/b_sci.htm). Plus another 10,000 or so
> "scientists". There has been several comments in this thread that this
> petition is a fraud but no one has shown me why it is a fraud. Someone said
> Scientific American did an expose on it, but I searched the Scientific
> American website for past articles on Global Warming and couldn't find
> anything specific to the petition. OISM also claims to have verified over
> 95% of the signatures and that the cost of the petition was paid for
> entirely by private dontations and did not include any funding from sources
> from within the coal, oil, natural gas or related fields
> (http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm). If this is all a big lie, I
> would think the the pro-GW side would have a detailed examination of the lie
> on a website somewhere. I would also think the people whose names appear on
> the petition would stand up and speak the truth if they were somehow tricked
> into signing it or the petition didn't represent their true opinion on the
> subject.
Once more to the archives young Watson:
BTW, note that you are not the first one to traipse
merrily down this path.....
*****************
clone:
> BTW, there is no "scam" to actually debunk. What the link refers to is
> individual scientists who are in a position to study the issue, and have
> added themselves to a list of like-minded individuals that don't blindly
> accept the notion of human-caused global warming.
>
> Are you saying that the petition is a "scam", or that what these individual
> scientists believe is a "scam"? Your argument basically either looks like a
> collective ad-hominum attack or a blind adherence to environmentalist dogma.
> So, clarify it for me...which is it?
jh: Gee, when did you stop beating your wife. The argument above is
neither. It is no big surprise that in a large group (scientists) you
will find some who are guillible or adherents of any particular position,
no matter how far from the facts it is. Please note this is not a blind
adherence to any environmentalisht dogma, but a judgement on the
dogmatic and incorrect "paper" that accompanied the OISM petition.
The OISM petition was a scam. It strategy was the typical card forcing
strategy beloved by push pollers everywhere. It was organized by a
claque of partisans. The National Academy explicitly accused the
perpetrators of trying to mislead by formatting their "publication"
so that it gave the appearance of coming from the NAS. The ones
who fell for it were those not well informed about atmospheric
and climate science.
When the OISM list came out I traced about the first 200 names on the list
and the first 100 or so on the seperate list that claimed to be from
atmospheric scientists. The percentage of such was small, even on
the "specialists list" Someone suggested that I look at a number
of atmospheric scientists who had signed an earlier petition
(The Heidelberg Declaration I believe). Most had not signed
this one. Maybe they knew something you don't Here are the
first 50 names from the Heidelberg Declaration and whether they
signed the OISM petition or not.
> Dr. John Apel, oceanographer, Global Oceans Associates, formerly with
> Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. David Aubrey, Senior Scientist, Marine Policy Center, Woods Hole
> Oceanographic Institute, Massachusetts DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Duwayne M. Anderson,Professor, Texas A&M University DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Robert Balling, Professor and Director of the Office of
> Climatology, Arizona State University; SIGNED
> Dr. Jack Barrett, Imperial College, London, UK DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Warren Berning, atmospheric physicist, New Mexico State University
> SIGNED
> Dr. Jiri Blumel, Institute Sozialokon. Forschg. Usti nad Labem, Czech
> Republic DID NOT SIGN
> Bruce Boe, atmospheric scientist and Director of the North Dakota
> DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. C.J.F. Böttcher, Chairman of the Board, The Global Institute for
> the Study of Natural Resources, The Hague, The Netherlands; SIGNED
> .Dr. Arthur Bourne, Professor, University of London, UK DID NOT SIGN
> Larry H. Brace, physicist, former director of the Planetary
> Atmospheres Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Norman M.D. Brown, FRSC, Professor, University of Ulster. DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. R.A.D. Byron-Scott, meteorologist, formerly senior lecturer in
> meteorology, Flinders Institute for Atmospheric and Marine Science,
> Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Joseph Cain, Professor of planetary physics and geophysics,
> Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Institute, Florida State University; DID NOT
> SIGN
> Dr. Gabriel T. Csanady, meteorologist, Eminent Professor, Old Dominion
> University, Norfolk, Virginia. SIGNED
> Robert Cunningham, consulting meteorologist, Fellow, American
> Meteorological Society DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Fred W. Decker, Professor of meteorology, Oregon State University,
> SIGNED
> Lee W. Eddington, meteorologist, Naval Air Warfare Center SIGNED
> Dr. Hugh Ellsaesser, atmospheric scientist, Lawrence Livermore
> National Laboratory (1963-1986); SIGNED
> Dr. John Emsley, Imperial College, London, UK DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Otto Franzle, Professor, University of Kiel, Germany DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. C.R. de Freitas, climate scientist, University of Auckland, New
> Zealand, Editor of the international journal Climate Research DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. John E. Gaynor, Senior Meteorologist, Environmental Technology
> Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder,
> Colorado DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Tor Ragnar Gerholm, Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of
> Stockholm, DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Gerhard Gerlich, Professor, Technical University of Braunschweig. DID
> NOT SIGN
> Dr. Thomas Gold, Professor of astrophysics, Cornell University DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. H.G. Goodell, Professor, University of Virginia, Charlottesville DID
> NOT SIGN
> James D. Goodridge, climatologist, formerly with California Dept. of
> Water Resources. DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Adrian Gordon, meteorologist, University of South Australia.DID NOT
> SIGN
> Prof. Dr. Eckhard Grimmel, Professor, University Hamburg, Germany. DID NOT
> SIGN
> Dr. Nathaniel B. Guttman, Research Physical Scientist, National
> Climatic Data Center, SIGNED (23/8)
> Dr. Paul Handler, Professor of chemistry, University of Illinois. DID NOT
> SIGN
> Dr. Vern Harnapp, Professor, University of Akron, Ohio DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Howard C. Hayden, Professor of physics, University of Connecticut
> SIGNED
> Dr. Michael J. Higatsberger, Professor and former Director, Institute
> for Experimental Physics, University of Vienna, DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Austin W. Hogan, meteorologist, co-editor of the journal
> Atmospheric Research. SIGNED
> Dr. William Hubbard, Professor, University of Arizona, Dept. of
> Planetary Sciences; DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Heinz Hug, lecturer, Wiesbaden, Germany DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Zbigniew Jaworski, University of Warsaw, Poland DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Kelvin Kemm, nuclear physicist, Director, Technology Strategy
> Consultants, Pretoria, South Africa; DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Robert L. Kovach, Professor of geophysics, Stanford University,
> Palo Alto, California DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. David R. Legates, Professor of meteorology, University of Oklahoma
> DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Heinz H. Lettau, geophysicist, Increase A. Lapham Professor
> Emeritus, University of Wisconsin DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Henry R. Linden, Max McGraw Professor of Energy and Power
> Engineering and Management, Director, Energy and Power Center,
> Illinois Institute of Technology; DID NOT SIGN
> Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Sloane Professor of Meteorology, Center for
> Meteorology and Physical Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of
> Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. SIGNED
(34/11)
I am a scientist, but I know damn all about recombinant DNA based
technologies and would not express myself on any scientific issue
concerning recombinant DNA technology. Evidently many fellow
scientists are not so fussy.
Josh Halpern
Steve Schulin
> Steve Schulin wrote:
> > The climatic consequences of major increases in the concentration of
> > atmospheric carbon dioxide were calculated over 100 years ago, but
> > only during the last two decades have the effects of human-induced
> > increases in various atmospheric gas concentrations become a concern
> > of a wide range of scientists. The near-century delay between the
> > propounding of the theory and the widespread recognition of the
> > consequences for climate of continuing human activities implies a
> > recent shift in either the perspectives or in the interests of
> > researchers.
>
> ...or in the accuracy of scientific instruments. We didn't even know
> that CO2 was actually increasing at any appreciable rate until Keeling
> measured the concentration accurately in 1960.
Conventional wisdom wasn't too concerned even well after the rising
trend was quantified. In that infamous 1970s-vintage peer-reviewed
particulate cooling article that young Stanford professor Stephan
Schneider and colleague published in Science, the authors asserted
pretty low maximum warming expected from doubled CO2 or somesuch. It
passed peer review without even a reference or other footnote on this
point.
>
> > We caution that the pre-eminence and longevity of the
> > 'global warming' thesis is vulnerable either to meteorological data
> > that do not fit with model scenarios, or to the rise or resurrection
> > of other notions on the primary forcing factors in climatic change.
>
> Big surprise. They admit it is a science, and like all scientific
> theories possible to disprove through observations that doesn't
> fit.
>
> > To
> > obtain a clear perspective on late-Holocene climatic change, it will
> > be necessary to evaluate palaeoclimate data that derive from a wide
> > range of complementary sources - sedimentological, biological,
> > archaeological and documentary - and to compare the magnitude, rate
> > and frequency of past climatic changes implied in those data with
> > recorded twentieth-century 'global' changes and projected
> > twenty-first-century scenarios.
>
> "Hey, we want some of the money that goes to climate research too"
>
> Well, they can have it. ...
Easy for you to say. Based on the experience of researchers like MIT
meteorologist Reginald Newell, these authors may have a hard time
avoiding retaliation from proposal reviewers with now long-vested
interest in the so-called "consensus" view. Dr. Newell's NSF funds
were cut back in 1989. His project, which involved analysis of sea
surface temperature data, was (according to Dr. Lindzen) not finding
any net warming trend for the last hundred years. "Reviewers suggested
that his results were dangerous to humanity", Lindzen reports.
> ... They are correct that understanding past
> climate change is important to understand the present change. The
> more climate data we have, the better we will be able to calibrate
> our models of the climate.
>
> This paper of yours does in no way contradict Roger's statement, ...
Sure it contradicts Roger. Roger looks at abstracts and perceives a
shift. He draws a conclusion from this about what the shift means. The
abstract I posted indicates that the authors also perceive a shift.
Their abstract indicates that they draw quite different conclusions
about what the shift means. Roger has referred to his conclusions in
several posts besides this one. To the best of my recollection, he
believes that the shift represents quite a vindication of his alarm,
and quite a repudiation of those who do not share it.
> ... although some paleoclimatologists do seem unwilling to admit that
Steve Schulin
Historian Tom Fleming places significance on much different side of
the story: "Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, most
scientists did not think that increased carbon dioxide levels would
result in climate warming. Spectroscopic work by Knut Ångström,
Clemens Schaefer, and others led meteorologists to believe that water
vapor was controlling the infra-red heat budget and that doubling or
halving the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would not appreciably
affect the amount of radiation actually absorbed by it."
>
> Note: Climate consequences? Why are the authors including predictions of
> ACC, where Arehennius only calculated the GW?? Why is this given this way?
> The issues of GW are totally separate form issues of consequent climate
> change.
So you see GW as a cause of consequent climate change? Would you say
that's a consensus view?
I'd love to see the whole paper.
>
> Number 5 is, of course correct, as previously noted. There would be very
> little work done on the GW issue if they had *failed* to find a warming.
>
> "the most convincing place for a lie is between two truths". I see that this
> has been expanded to include spin doctoring and whooey.
>
> > We caution that the pre-eminence and longevity of the
> > 'global warming' thesis is vulnerable either to meteorological data
> > that do not fit with model scenarios, or to the rise or resurrection
> > of other notions on the primary forcing factors in climatic change.
>
> Science is always vulnerable to new evidence. The lack of such evidence
> under intense and well funded scrutiny by some fairly competent scientists
> means that a major change in the analysis is only 'theoretical'. Expect it
> right after you see a brick building falling upstairs.
I respectfully disagree. No major change is needed to cause the fad to
fizzle. All that's needed is more of the same kind of piddling trends
observed so far.
>
> >
> To
> > obtain a clear perspective on late-Holocene climatic change, it will
> > be necessary to evaluate palaeoclimate data that derive from a wide
> > range of complementary sources - sedimentological, biological,
> > archaeological and documentary - and to compare the magnitude, rate
> > and frequency of past climatic changes implied in those data with
> > recorded twentieth-century 'global' changes and projected
> > twenty-first-century scenarios.
>
> Now that is crap. ...
It sounds quite similar to what IPCC has said: "... a better
understanding of past variations is essential if we are to estimate
reliably the extent to which the warming over the last century, and
future warming ..."
> ... The relevance of paleoclimatology to CO2 driven GW is
> non-existent. Nor is the climate of the 55 milllion years ago relevant to an
> earth with continents drifted into different positions, ice caps ( a recent
> phenomenon ) and continents which break up equatorial currents ( closing of
> the gap between North and South America for example. There is not comparable
> *recent* change in CO2 levels is there? By recent I am talking about since
> the closing of the continents and the buildup of the icecap, i.e. similar
> geography to today.
>
> Steve? How many times are you going to post this crap? Should I save this to
> cut and paste a response?
Feel welcome. I'll probably keep posting it as long as Mr. Coppock
keeps posting his dissimilar conclusions from his abstract perusal.
>
> Note: They make suggestions, but do not really have a leg to stand on in
> science terms. The opinion is generally that the consensus started about
> 1992, showed up in the 1995 IPCC report and was stregthened by the 2000 IPCC
> report which included endorsements from all major science academies, some in
> defiance of their own government. ...
This story gets more embellished every time you tell it. LOL.
> ... As far as I can see, this 'op-ed' piece
> has no solid basis in science and what they did include ( Arhennius )
> confused his thermodynamics ( GW ) with 'climate change'. Very not
> impressive.
Like I said -- I'd love to read the full text of this peer-reviewed
journal article.
Roger Coppock
I have read the Chambers and Brain article. We do not disagree.
They report the beginning of the debate in 1988-1991 when the ratio of
papers crossed 50-50; I report the end in 1996-1997, when global warming
theory has an overwhelming 100 to 1 majority.
--- --- --- Roger
Ken Clement
> k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> > So, if I understand your assertions we have two falsifiable
> > hypothesis:
> >
> > #1. The Rise in the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is due
> > primarily to human activities - principally burning fossil fuels.
>
> Which is proven by the study of the isotopic concentration of Carbon and
> other trace gasses associated with the various sources of carbon.
Proven? That's quite a strong word. "Indicated" or "strongly
indicated" I might accept. At least I would take the claim seriously.
Good scientific writing is also careful writing. But to call it
proven is to go beyond the certainty of the available evidence. The
Earth's climate has undergone warming before - even in historical
times. Given that these were also pre-industrial times and that their
causes are still not identified, more caution is called for. After
all - history could be repeating itself.
> Also
> proven by the tracking of Co2 output with estimates of the amount of carbon
> entering into the atmosphere from the activities of man.
>
How good are these estimates? Of all of the proposals for CO2
reduction presently before us, how much would the CO2 levels be
reduced? Within what confidence limits? The answers I have heard
have varied wildly except that most agree that the present proposals
would barely make a dent in it.
>
> > #2. The apparent rise in the average temperature of the Earth is due
> > to rising CO2 levels.
>
> A fact which is accepted by the consensus of the worlds scientists.
>
What are you calling a fact? The historically recent rise in average
temperature of the Earth? (I agree - this fact is established beyond
reasonable doubt though there is some disagreement on its exact
magnitude.) Or that it is principally due to rising CO2 levels. (This
claim is plausible but not certain enough to be a fact.) Remember
that the Earth has experienced warming episodes in the historically
recent past that certainly are not due to industrial activities. Nor
has it to my knowledge been shown that CO2 levels rose at that time
due to some other circumstance.
>
> But to be more clear. The consensus holds that at least the majority of
> he observed warming of the earth is caused by the increase in CO2 levels.
>
I do not dispute that a body of opinion holds this to be true. It may
even be a "consensus" depending on how one scores that determination.
It is however the facts that must ultimately govern the outcome. I
have a problem with the claim that the number of scientists who
advocate this viewpoint, and moreover who believe the environmental
catastrophism so often advanced, is as overwhelming as portrayed.
>
> k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> > #1 is falsifiable because a measured leveling off or decrease in CO2
> > levels not simultaneous with decreasing relevant human activities
> > would be a contradiction.
>
> All other things being equal.
>
All other things are NEVER truly equal. If caution is not to be
employed in making claims (what is proved vs. indicated; catastrophic
environmental consequences; etc.) then it should not be used in
formulating the falsifiable hypothesis.
>
>
>
> k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> > #2 is falsifiable because a subsequent cooling off not tied to
> > decreasing CO2 levels would be a contradiction.
>
> Not necessarily. All other factors have to be accounted for.
>
Once again, selectively cautious language makes me suspicious. If the
appropriate level of caution is to be used is stating the falsifiable
part of the theory, a comparable level of caution should be used in
the claimed consequences.
Or to put it another way, if it is acknowledged that there are other
factors that are at least as important as the CO2 concentration (the
radiative output of the Sun for example), then it must also be
admitted that the concern over this one factor may be overblown and it
may not be the leading factor in rising temperatures.
>
> It is a basic consequence of radiative physics that if you add an
> insulating layer to a surface that is being heated, the surface will
> increae[sic] it's temperature.
But as you pointed out: "All other things being equal."
How good are out current models tracking increasing CO2 atmospheric
concentration to retained heat from the Sun? How much variance is
there between different models? I do not have a great deal of
confidence in the current predictive models. Is there any reason I
should?
>
> k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> > These resilience of these hypothesis is what will eventually settle
> > the matter. For now, the skeptic in me is still skeptical about most
> > environmentalist claims.
>
> Then you are skeptical about most scientific claims as well.
As the only person in the Universe who can speak with absolute
authority on what my scientific views are: You are wrong.
I have however learned that not all branches of science are equally
mature, not all scientists are equally capable, and no one is immune
to outside influences in forming
> Even when they are claimed by the consensus of the world[']s scientists.
Wrong again. The statement above should have read: "Even when they
are claimed by a consensus..." There is also a consensus of competent
antithetical opinion.
>
> Quite pathetic.
As I pointed out in my original post, condescension is not going to
change anyone's mind about anything. (You seem resistant to this
idea.) In the context of the current subject matter, it is also not
indicative of a sound scientific foundation.
I remain skeptical.
Ian St. John
Early speculations are often victims of the accumulating data. We know
better now. It is somewhat due to the risks of premature conclusions that
led to such a long delay in validating the current consensus.
>
> >
> > Note: Climate consequences? Why are the authors including predictions of
> > ACC, where Arehennius only calculated the GW?? Why is this given this
way?
> > The issues of GW are totally separate form issues of consequent climate
> > change.
>
> So you see GW as a cause of consequent climate change? Would you say
> that's a consensus view?
I see GW as a firmly established scientific fact. So, the question is, can
warming of the atmosphere have effects on climate? The answer I think you
would get from a majority of relevant researchers is yes, in terms that the
hydrological cycle will be affected and the sea surface temperatures will
drive increased storm activity.
Now, The problem is not whether there will be changes. There are natural
changes as well. The question is how bad the additional changes are, where
they are, and if these simple changes are all of the story. I don't think
you will get much concensus on these questions.
The risks are there. We already have some ecological effects due to warmer
cool temperatures and lower winter die off of some pest species. The
question only becomes one of relative costs and since those are unknown, a
caution to minimize changes until we are sure of the science. Fools rush in
where angels fear to tread comes to mind. Are we fools?
<snip>
> >
> > > We caution that the pre-eminence and longevity of
the
> > > 'global warming' thesis is vulnerable either to meteorological data
> > > that do not fit with model scenarios, or to the rise or resurrection
> > > of other notions on the primary forcing factors in climatic change.
> >
> > Science is always vulnerable to new evidence. The lack of such evidence
> > under intense and well funded scrutiny by some fairly competent
scientists
> > means that a major change in the analysis is only 'theoretical'. Expect
it
> > right after you see a brick building falling upstairs.
>
> I respectfully disagree. No major change is needed to cause the fad to
> fizzle. All that's needed is more of the same kind of piddling trends
> observed so far.
I don't see your 'trend'. Maybe because I'm reading the peer reviewed
literature instead of the junk-science sites?
>
> >
> > >
> > > To
> > > obtain a clear perspective on late-Holocene climatic change, it will
> > > be necessary to evaluate palaeoclimate data that derive from a wide
> > > range of complementary sources - sedimentological, biological,
> > > archaeological and documentary - and to compare the magnitude, rate
> > > and frequency of past climatic changes implied in those data with
> > > recorded twentieth-century 'global' changes and projected
> > > twenty-first-century scenarios.
> >
> > Now that is crap. ...
>
> It sounds quite similar to what IPCC has said: "... a better
> understanding of past variations is essential if we are to estimate
> reliably the extent to which the warming over the last century, and
> future warming ..."
Yup. It is a possible that we can data mine some helpful hints, but I don't
see it as all that applicable to generating predictions of climate change.
Too many details aren't the same today. Too many details with too much
uncertainty. Proxies are not the same as instrument data.
I'm not yet convinced that we can ever(in my lifetime at least) get a
detailed climate change prediction. No more than we can get a five day
forcast with 20% accuracy for the fifth day. What we can do is get some idea
of the general trends, and that will come from studying and improving GCMs,
and doing statistical analysis of trends from a better instrumented planet.
I'd call for something equivalent to the IGY, focussed on climatology and
meteorology, especially finding ways to 'fill in' the southern hemisphere a
bit..
>
> > ... The relevance of paleoclimatology to CO2 driven GW is
> > non-existent. Nor is the climate of the 55 milllion years ago relevant
to an
> > earth with continents drifted into different positions, ice caps ( a
recent
> > phenomenon ) and continents which break up equatorial currents ( closing
of
> > the gap between North and South America for example. There is not
comparable
> > *recent* change in CO2 levels is there? By recent I am talking about
since
> > the closing of the continents and the buildup of the icecap, i.e.
similar
> > geography to today.
> >
> > Steve? How many times are you going to post this crap? Should I save
this to
> > cut and paste a response?
>
> Feel welcome. I'll probably keep posting it as long as Mr. Coppock
> keeps posting his dissimilar conclusions from his abstract perusal.
Sighhh.. Ok. I'll save a copy.
>
> >
> > Note: They make suggestions, but do not really have a leg to stand on in
> > science terms. The opinion is generally that the consensus started about
> > 1992, showed up in the 1995 IPCC report and was stregthened by the 2000
IPCC
> > report which included endorsements from all major science academies,
some in
> > defiance of their own government. ...
>
> This story gets more embellished every time you tell it. LOL.
Feel free to deride the facts. It comes easily I see.
>
> > ... As far as I can see, this 'op-ed' piece
> > has no solid basis in science and what they did include ( Arhennius )
> > confused his thermodynamics ( GW ) with 'climate change'. Very not
> > impressive.
>
> Like I said -- I'd love to read the full text of this peer-reviewed
> journal article.
And you know it is peer reviewed how? If you can't find it, you can hardly
know if it was accepted as a peer reviewed forum article or a non reviewed
research report of research paper.
http://www.arnoldpublishers.com/journals/pages/holocene/aut.htm shows the
classes of published works.
Thomas Palm
>
> Thomas Palm <thoma...@chello.se> wrote in message news:<3D2697EC...@chello.se>...
> > that CO2 was actually increasing at any appreciable rate until Keeling
> > measured the concentration accurately in 1960.
>
> Conventional wisdom wasn't too concerned even well after the rising
> trend was quantified. In that infamous 1970s-vintage peer-reviewed
> particulate cooling article that young Stanford professor Stephan
> Schneider and colleague published in Science, the authors asserted
> pretty low maximum warming expected from doubled CO2 or somesuch. It
> passed peer review without even a reference or other footnote on this
> point.
Yes, Schneider did assume a very low value for the CO2 forcing. This
was pointed out to him right after the article was published and the
result was therefore considered not valid. The reason the paper is
infamous is that it is more or less unique, so that greenhouse sceptics
has to go back to this single flawed article over and over again.
> > This paper of yours does in no way contradict Roger's statement, ...
>
> Sure it contradicts Roger. Roger looks at abstracts and perceives a
> shift. He draws a conclusion from this about what the shift means. The
> abstract I posted indicates that the authors also perceive a shift.
> Their abstract indicates that they draw quite different conclusions
> about what the shift means.
Unlike the fact that the shift happened, what it "means" is just
speculation. They may speculate as much as they want and it won't
change the basic facts.
Thomas Palm
> Historian Tom Fleming places significance on much different side of
> the story: "Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, most
> scientists did not think that increased carbon dioxide levels would
> result in climate warming. Spectroscopic work by Knut Ångström,
> Clemens Schaefer, and others led meteorologists to believe that water
> vapor was controlling the infra-red heat budget and that doubling or
> halving the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would not appreciably
> affect the amount of radiation actually absorbed by it."
Throughout the first half of the century people besed their speculations
on limited spectroscopic data done in low pressure by physicists more
interested in determining the position of absorbtion lines than their
intensity. This made them ignore important phenomena such as pressure
broadening of absorbtion lines. At the same time people assumed, with
no real basis, that all extra CO2 would be sequestered.
Thus it seemed CO2 was unimportant for climate change and the field
was more or less ignored for a long time. Not until we got some data
indicating that there might be a problem, i.e., the CO2 concentration
was rising rapidly, did people start to study the subject in earnest,
and then it took some time to make reasonably sure what the warming
would be.
This may be interesting from a historical viewpoint, but it doesn't
say anything about whether the far more developed theories of today
are right or wrong.
Scott Douglas
>> Carbon and other trace gasses associated with the various sources of >>
>> carbon.
K...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> Proven? That's quite a strong word. "Indicated" or "strongly
> indicated" I might accept.
So your argument is not based on knowledge of science, climatology,
chemistry etc. Your argument is based on Philosophy.
K...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> Good scientific writing is also careful writing. But to call it
> proven is to go beyond the certainty of the available evidence.
Right, and since your doctor hasn't proven that you are a man, he
shouldn't take your medical complaints seriously. After all, you could be
a butterfly dreaming he is a man.
K...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> The Earth's climate has undergone warming before - even in historical
> times. Given that these were also pre-industrial times and that their
> causes are still not identified, more caution is called for. After
> all - history could be repeating itself.
In part that is recognized by everyone. But the basic laws of physics
are such that adding CO2 can only produce greater warming. The science
tells us that at the very least, most of the observed warming is due to
increasing levels of CO2. Some minor component could be natural. The IPCC
lists and quantifies those components.
Now since your claim is that all of the warming could be natural, and not
a result of higher levels of CO2, which laws of physics are you proposing
that science alter to make this possible?
I have asked denialists such as yourself this question literally dozens
of times, without answer.
Why do you think that is Ken?
>> Also
>> proven by the tracking of Co2 output with estimates of the amount of
>> carbon entering into the atmosphere from the activities of man.
K...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> How good are these estimates?
Nearly perfect. Oil production is tracked to the barrel, and coal
production by the boxcar, methane and natural gas by the cubic foot.
The inaccuracy has been in accounting for how much Co2 was being taken up
by the oceans, and by the biosphere.
K...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> Of all of the proposals for CO2
> reduction presently before us, how much would the CO2 levels be
> reduced?
Since proposals can be generated to match any expectaion your question
has no reasonable answer.
What can be said however, is that kyoto would not reduce Co2 levels.
Only the rate of Co2 emissions. And only reduce those to a level where
they still exceed the Biosphere's ability to absorb the Co2 being emitted.
This tells us that Kyoto is not only not draconian as denialists would
have us believe, but is positively benign compared to the actions that are
needed.
Denialists often childishly argue therefore that Kyoto should not be
considered because it is not a solution.
This is equivalent to arguing that one must never travel because the
first step is inadequate to complete the journey.
>> > #2. The apparent rise in the average temperature of the Earth is
>> > due to rising CO2 levels.
>>
>> A fact which is accepted by the consensus of the worlds scientists.
K...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> What are you calling a fact?
The measured rise in the average temperature of the earth resulting from
the addion of Co2.
It is a requirement for this to happen with incresing CO2 levels. It is
a requirement of the laws of physics.
If you wish to deny this fact, then you are going to have to explain to
us why CO2 is observed to do this in the lab, and which laws of physics are
wrong such that it does not also occur in the atmosphere.
Which laws of physics are you claiming are wrong Ken?
K...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> The historically recent rise in average
> temperature of the Earth? (I agree - this fact is established beyond
> reasonable doubt though there is some disagreement on its exact
> magnitude.)
I am happy to see that you are electing not to quibble over the word
"exact" as you seemingly needed to quibble over the word "proven".
>> But to be more clear. The consensus holds that at least the
>> majority of
>> he observed warming of the earth is caused by the increase in CO2
>> levels.
K...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> I do not dispute that a body of opinion holds this to be true. It may
> even be a "consensus" depending on how one scores that determination.
> It is however the facts that must ultimately govern the outcome.
The facts are that CO2 levels are rising, and the globe is observed to be
warming. THis is what is expected as Co2 is added to the atmosphere. No
other credible explanations for the observed warming exist although some
minor component of the observed warming may be the result of factors other
than CO2.
The fact is that the laws of physics tell us that by adding Co2 to the
atmosphere, the atmosphere must warm.
Now which law/laws of physics are you suggesting we modify such that
additional CO2 has no such effect?
K...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> I have a problem with the claim that the number of scientists who
> advocate this viewpoint, and moreover who believe the environmental
> catastrophism so often advanced, is as overwhelming as portrayed.
As to the the Environmentalist view being the consensus scientific
viewpoint, it is easily verified to be the case by simply visiting your
local university library and counting the number of pro and anti global
warming articles in the journals there.
You will be hard pressed to find any articles denying the reality of
global warming, or it's cause in scientific journals.
Why do you think that is Ken?
As for catastrophism, you won't find much of that in the journals either.
If you believe there is, then you have been flim flammed by the carbon
industry and it's paid shills.
>> k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
>> > #1 is falsifiable because a measured leveling off or decrease in
>> > CO2 levels not simultaneous with decreasing relevant human
>> > activities would be a contradiction.
>>
>> All other things being equal.
K...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> All other things are NEVER truly equal.
If that is what you believe then you have no claim of falsifiability.
K...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> If caution is not to be
> employed in making claims (what is proved vs. indicated; catastrophic
> environmental consequences; etc.) then it should not be used in
> formulating the falsifiable hypothesis.
Caution is not only employed by strongly indicated as a policy. The
caution is the no regrets emission reduction strategy that reduces
emissions, but does so in a manner that has alternate benefits not strictly
limited to Co2 reduction.
This is the policy that the Environmentalist and Scientific community
have been pressing for over the last decade or so.
>> k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
>> > #2 is falsifiable because a subsequent cooling off not tied to
>> > decreasing CO2 levels would be a contradiction.
>>
>> Not necessarily. All other factors have to be accounted for.
k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> Once again, selectively cautious language makes me suspicious. If the
> appropriate level of caution is to be used is stating the falsifiable
> part of the theory, a comparable level of caution should be used in
> the claimed consequences.
And that is what is being done. If you have a complaint, please feel
free to provide an example.
k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> Or to put it another way, if it is acknowledged that there are other
> factors that are at least as important as the CO2 concentration (the
> radiative output of the Sun for example), then it must also be
> admitted that the concern over this one factor may be overblown and it
> may not be the leading factor in rising temperatures.
As stated several times, there are no other factors that are at least as
important. CO2 is the greenhouse gas driving the show and it is the most
important.
Who has suggested otherwise? And on what scientific basis?
>> It is a basic consequence of radiative physics that if you add an
>> insulating layer to a surface that is being heated, the surface will
>> increae[sic] it's temperature.
k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> But as you pointed out: "All other things being equal."
No, not in this case. Increasing levels of CO2 will always cause the
surface temperature to rise.
Other factors may also cause the earths surface temperature to rise or
fall as well. But as I have stated, all major factors are known,
estimated, and combined are a smaller role in the observed temperature
increase than Co2.
k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> How good are out current models tracking increasing CO2 atmospheric
> concentration to retained heat from the Sun?
Your question is unclear. If you have seen the keeling curve you would
know that a simple linear model is sufficient to predict atmospheric Co2
levels for the next few decades since the trendline is very close to
linear, although superlinear.
> How much variance is there between different models?
Not much really, a few degrees. Your question is easily answered if you
read any of the IPCC reports.
k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> I do not have a great deal of confidence in the current predictive
> models. Is there any reason I should?
On what scietific basis do you base your lack of confidence? Certainly if
you are to make any objective estimate on which you can set a confidence
level, you must have considered the models in detail and have a legitimate
complaint about their performance.
Can you tell us what analysis you have done, and what your complaints are
specifically?
Or is your lack of confidence coming from some other direction? Faith
perhaps? The consumption of propaganda? Psychic Vibrations?
Is there a reason why you should have faith in the existing models? Yes,
clearly. They all produce essentially the same general result.
Ken can you tell me of a single model that shows cooling as CO2 is added to
the atmosphere?
>> Even when they are claimed by the consensus of the world[']s
>> scientists.
k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> Wrong again. The statement above should have read: "Even when they
> are claimed by a consensus..." There is also a consensus of competent
> antithetical opinion.
Well then, lets be very clear. The group in question is the set of world
scientists. There is general agreement, group solidarity, sentiment,
belief that the observed warming globe is a result of increased levels of
Co2 in the atmosphere.
I offer the following definition of the word "consensus" to guide you in
the comprehension of the above sentence.
Main Entry: con新en新us
Pronunciation: k&n-'sen(t)-s&s
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Latin, from consentire
Date: 1858
1 a : general agreement : UNANIMITY <the consensus of their opinion, based
on reports... from the border -- John Hersey> b : the judgment arrived at
by most of those concerned <the consensus was to go ahead>
2 : group solidarity in sentiment and belief
usage The phrase consensus of opinion, which is not actually redundant (see
sense 1a; the sense that takes the phrase is slightly older), has been so
often claimed to be a redundancy that many writers avoid it. You are safe
in using consensus alone when it is clear you mean consensus of opinion,
and most writers in fact do so.
k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> I remain skeptical.
Then read the IPCC reports and educate yourself.
Joshua Halpern
Thomas Palm wrote:
> Steve Schulin wrote:
> > Thomas Palm <thoma...@chello.se> wrote
> > > ...or in the accuracy of scientific instruments. We didn't even know
> > > that CO2 was actually increasing at any appreciable rate until Keeling
> > > measured the concentration accurately in 1960.
> >
> > Conventional wisdom wasn't too concerned even well after the rising
> > trend was quantified. In that infamous 1970s-vintage peer-reviewed
> > particulate cooling article that young Stanford professor Stephan
> > Schneider and colleague published in Science, the authors asserted
> > pretty low maximum warming expected from doubled CO2 or somesuch. It
> > passed peer review without even a reference or other footnote on this
> > point.
>
> Yes, Schneider did assume a very low value for the CO2 forcing. This
> was pointed out to him right after the article was published and the
> result was therefore considered not valid.
Actually, it was pointed out to him before the paper was
published and acknowledged in a long footnote. Probably
by the referee. I think, if I were the editor, I would
have let it be published anyhow, with the footnote,
because of the importance of sulphate aerosol cooling
as a negative forcing. All in all a good example of
how the refereeing process should work, and that no
good dead goes unpunished.
josh halpern
Joshua Halpern
Ken Clement wrote:
> Scott Douglas <s_do...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> > > So, if I understand your assertions we have two falsifiable
> > > hypothesis:
> > > #1. The Rise in the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is due
> > > primarily to human activities - principally burning fossil fuels.
> > Which is proven by the study of the isotopic concentration of Carbon and
> > other trace gasses associated with the various sources of carbon.
> Proven? That's quite a strong word. "Indicated" or "strongly
> indicated" I might accept.
How about established or proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
We are used to seeing all sorts of unreasonable ones, but
what the hey. A good place to start is
http://www.radix.net/~bobg/faqs/scq.CO2rise.html
and
http://www.radix.net/~bobg/faqs/scq.basics.html
which, although somewhat old are well written, available
to the layperson, and can give you the background you
need to participate in a discussion on climate change.
AFAIK, and I do follow the literature somewhat, no one
has usefully challenged the underlying research, although
in the meantime, it has been improved. The principal
advance has been a better understanding of CO2 sinks
which have held the increase down by a factor of two.
An interesting question is whether we are near saturating
any of those sinks.
> At least I would take the claim seriously.
> Good scientific writing is also careful writing. But to call it
> proven is to go beyond the certainty of the available evidence.
Not really, although you might have to better acquaint
yourself with the evidence.
> The Earth's climate has undergone warming before - even in historical
> times. Given that these were also pre-industrial times and that their
> causes are still not identified, more caution is called for. After
> all - history could be repeating itself.
Now you are shifting the argument. The original argument was
about whether the observed (would you prefer proved?) rise
in CO2 in the atmosphere was due to human activities. Now
you are talking about warming of the climate. That is another
question due to anthropic activities. There the evidence
is weaker, but increasingly strong. This is quite a
normal tactic here, so join the crowd.
> > Also proven by the tracking of Co2 output with estimates
> > of the amount of carbon entering into the atmosphere from
> > the activities of man.
>
> How good are these estimates? Of all of the proposals for CO2
> reduction presently before us, how much would the CO2 levels be
> reduced? Within what confidence limits? The answers I have heard
> have varied wildly except that most agree that the present proposals
> would barely make a dent in it.
Well, do a google search on "carbon cycle". The answer is
that the estimates are improving. As to the second question,
that depends on how well you can predict future emission
scenerios. For example, the claim that the present proposal
(Kyoto) would bearly make a dent in CO2 levels rests on two
related supports. The first is that the developing nations
(principally India and China) would not join the control
regime in the future. Although that is a political question,
(they could elect Bush), given their behavior wrt the Montreal
Protocols to control CFC emissions, the presumption has to
be that they would join. The second is that their emissions
would grow strongly. Recent evidence of a significant decline
in Chinese CFC emissions puts strong doubts to that one. Both
China and India have an enormous amount of room in which to
improve the efficiency of their household and industrial
use of energy, and appear to be doing so. All in all, I
would question your assertion.
josh halpern
From the FAQ:
>From its preindustrial level of about 280 ppmv (parts per million
by volume) around the year 1800, atmospheric carbon dioxide rose to
315 ppmv in 1958 and to about 358 ppmv in 1994 [Battle] [C.Keeling]
[Schimel 94, p 43-44]. All the signs are that the CO2 rise is
human-made:
* Ice cores show that during the past 1000 years until about the year
1800, atmospheric CO2 was fairly stable at levels between 270 and
290 ppmv. The 1994 value of 358 ppmv is higher than any CO2 level
observed over the past 220,000 years. In the Vostok and Byrd ice
cores, CO2 does not exceed 300 ppmv. A more detailed record from
peat suggests a temporary peak of ~315 ppmv about 4,700 years ago,
but this needs further confirmation. [Figge, figure 3] [Schimel 94,
p 44-45] [White]
* The rise of atmospheric CO2 closely parallels the emissions history
from fossil fuels and land use changes [Schimel 94, p 46-47].
* The rise of airborne CO2 falls short of the human-made CO2 emissions.
Taken together, the ocean and the terrestrial vegetation and soils
must currently be a net sink of CO2 rather than a source [Melillo,
p 454] [Schimel 94, p 47, 55] [Schimel 95, p 79] [Siegenthaler].
* Most "new" CO2 comes from the Northern Hemisphere. Measurements
in Antarctica show that Southern Hemisphere CO2 level lags behind
by 1 to 2 years, which reflects the interhemispheric mixing time.
The ppmv-amount of the lag at a given time has increased according
to increasing anthropogenic CO2 emissions. [Schimel 94, p 43]
[Siegenthaler]
* Fossil fuels contain practically no carbon 14 (14C) and less carbon
13 (13C) than air. CO2 coming from fossil fuels should show up in
the trends of 13C and 14C. Indeed, the observed isotopic trends
fit CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. The trends are not compatible
with a dominant CO2 source in the terrestrial biosphere or in the
ocean. If you shun details, please skip the next two paragraphs.
* The unstable carbon isotope 14C or radiocarbon makes up for roughly
1 in 10**12 carbon atoms in earth's atmosphere. 14C has a half-life
of about 5700 years. The stock is replenished in the upper atmosphere
by a nuclear reaction involving cosmic rays and 14N [Butcher,
p 240-241]. Fossil fuels contain no 14C, as it decayed long ago.
Burning fossil fuels should lower the atmospheric 14C fraction (the
`Suess effect'). Indeed, atmospheric 14C, measured on tree rings,
dropped by 2 to 2.5 % from about 1850 to 1954, when nuclear bomb
tests started to inject 14C into the atmosphere [Butcher, p 256-257]
[Schimel 95, p 82]. This 14C decline cannot be explained by a CO2
source in the terrestrial vegetation or soils.
* The stable isotope 13C amounts to a bit over 1 % of earth's carbon,
almost 99 % is ordinary 12C [Butcher, p 240]. Fossil fuels contain
less 13C than air, because plants, which once produced the precursors
of the fossilized organic carbon compounds, prefer 12C over 13C in
photosynthesis (rather, they prefer CO2 which contains a 12C atom)
[Butcher, p 86]. Indeed, the 13C fractions in the atmosphere and
ocean surface waters declined over the past decades [Butcher, p 257]
[C.Keeling] [Quay] [Schimel 94, p 42]. This fits a fossil fuel CO2
source and argues against a dominant oceanic CO2 source. Oceanic
carbon has a trifle more 13C than atmospheric carbon, but 13CO2 is
heavier and less volatile than 12CO2, thus CO2 degassed from the
ocean has a 13C fraction close to that of atmospheric CO2 [Butcher,
p 86] [Heimann]. How then should an oceanic CO2 source cause
a simultaneous drop of 13C in both the atmosphere and ocean ?
Overall, a natural disturbance causing the recent CO2 rise is
extremely unlikely.
Forkboy2
> a result of higher levels of CO2, which laws of physics are you proposing
> that science alter to make this possible?
>
> I have asked denialists such as yourself this question literally dozens
> of times, without answer.
I don't think he was claiming ALL the warming was necessarily from natural
causes. I also don't think you would conclude that it is definately ALL
from human activity. So let's assume GW is occuring due in some part from
natural causes or natural fluctuations and also some part from human
actions. If we can agree on that assumption then several important
questions could be asked.
For instance...at what ratio (natual vs. human caused warming) would it make
political and financial sense to even bother trying to alter human
activities to stop the warming? Also, with what scientific certaintity can
the ratio be determined? Also, with what scientific certainty can the
results of the warming be determined? Also, what percentage of the GDP
should be used to try and correct the situation?
For example (just throwing these numbers out there), let's just say we agree
that 50% of the warming is caused by human activity and 50% is from natural
fluctuations, lets also say we're 25% certain of that ratio and 25% certain
that there will be catastrophic results from the warming. There are still
going to be disagreements on how much money, if any, should be spent to
change human activities.
Just out of curiosity, what would everyone's estimates be for A) ratio of
warming caused by humans vs. natural causes; B) How certain are you of that
ratio; and C) How certain are you that there will be catastrophic results
if the warming continues at the current rate? D) What percentage of the
GDP should be used (assuming that this will cost money)? Wondering if
anyone would answer 100% to all three.
Matt
"Scott Douglas" <s_do...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9245188E4...@216.221.81.119...
Ken Clement
> That the theory hasn't yet been falsified doesn't prove it is
> correct, and that will be true no matter how much climate change we
> see.
My problem is that unlike theories about the Universe's expansion or
the mass of neutrinos - this one is being used as a basis for
substantial policy proposals that carry consequence.
All of the proposals being made for "solving the problem" either make
too small a dent in the CO2 levels to matter (even assuming the
underlying models are accurate) or they carry such dire economic
consequences (or both) that I believe that we had better be damn sure
we know what we are doing.
The Earth has undergone warming (and subsequent cooling) in the
historic past unconnected with industrial activity. (Greenland once
warmed for a few centuries long enough to be briefly settled by
Vikings before the climate turned cold again.) Given this knowledge -
that climate changes happen naturally for reasons not well understood
- it would behoove us to be careful.
After all major surprises in a relatively new field is nothing
unexpected. For example, we've just learned that the rate of the
universe's expansion is INCREASING. Since Newton we have assumed that
gravity is the dominant force on the largest scales and since Hubble
we have known that the Universe is expanding. It was always believed
however that the expansion was slowing down due to mutual
gravitational attraction. Apparently, it isn't. Fortunately, this
has no public policy implications.
The large scale study of the Earth's environment is also a new field.
>
> Considering whether a theory is falsifiable is a good criterium[sic]
> to decide whether or not it is science, but it doesn't say much
> about whether it is a good description of reality. To do that one
> has to look at all different theories that claims to describe
> reality and chose the one that fits best and does so with the
> least amount of special assumptions.
Agreed. But we also bear in mind that there is always a "none of the
above" possibility, especially in a new field. There is no guarantee
that we have thought of everything or even the most important things.
There is also no guarantee that the metrics that are being used are
not faulty. They should improve with time provided open inquiry is
being aggressively pursued. With the politicization of this issue, I
have my doubts.
>
> #1 would then have to be considered true simply because there is
> no competing explanation with any shred of credibility.
I disagree. (See above.) To establish that #1 is true it is also
necessary to show that no competing explanation is likely possible –
and that alternative factors are not significant. For example, if
some natural or human-induced variation has occurred in the rate at
which atmospheric CO2 is absorbed and removed from the atmosphere,
this could be the principal cause of elevated CO2 levels. That could
implicate everything from deforestation to wildfires. In this case,
while the presence of isotopic C14 levels could be adequately
explained by industrial activity, its level in the atmosphere might
owe more to its tardy removal or premature reintroduction than to its
overproduction.
> #2 would
> have to be considered very likely because it is based on other
> well established scientific theories and that there is no competing
> theory that can explain the warming as well.
How hard are environmental scientists really looking?
>
> Being a sceptic is fine, but in situations with limited information
> and where our actions have consequences we often can't wait until
> all the evidence is in. Waiting is an action that has consequences
> too.
>
Doing the wrong thing – or placing a new scientific discipline in
disrepute because it is used to issue premature and alarmist
recommendations – also carries consequences.
To date, all public proposals that have been advanced to deal with CO2
barely make a dent in the CO2 level even assuming they are strictly
followed (a doubtful proposition at best). When the formulation of
public policy comes into play, the endeavor becomes more than
scientific in nature. It becomes more of an exercise in engineering
and persuasion.
As an exercise in engineering – economic analysis is at least as
important as the underlying environmental science. It may well be
that the economic costs are simply too great even if the problem is
real. In that case, attempts at CO2 reduction may be doomed to
failure and may impoverish the world's economies to the point of
making them less able to deal with the consequences when they do
happen.
As I see it, the question is: What makes more economic sense –
avoiding the consequences or dealing with them when they occur? I do
not pretend to know. At the present time environmentalists shouldn't
either.
At present we do not have enough information to make an informed
decision on this question. And making the WRONG decision (either way)
definitely carries consequences.
> The general who gets a report that the enemy is approaching may be
> sceptical that the report is true, but he ignores it at his own
> risk.
He also dispatches his entire force into ambushes at even greater
risk. I am not advocating that environmental concerns be ignored. I
am not even advocating that they be studied ad-nauseam so as to induce
analysis paralysis.
I am however pointing out that nothing we know how to or are likely to
do over the next decade is going to make much of a dent in the
atmospheric CO2 levels. That is about how long I estimate it will
take for responsible, aggressive scientific investigation to shed
enough light on the issues I raised earlier so as to permit rational
and effective policy decisions to be made. It may turn out that doing
nothing is indeed the best course.
In his autobiography, "Failure is not an Option" Gene Krantz wrote
about his early days at NASA under Chris Kraft. One day, a failed
rocket launch had left a fully fueled booster sitting precariously on
the launch pad, locks disengaged, umbilicals unplugged, and the
parachute unhelpfully deployed. A good gust of wind would be all it
would take to knock the rocket over and trigger a destructive
explosion. In the immediate frantic minutes after the near disaster,
flight controllers and engineers were excitedly debating what to do –
in particular how could this rocket be safely defueled. A number of
suggestions were made that Krantz wrote didn't even sound like a good
idea to a new kid like him on the block like him. (e.g. shooting
holes in the side rocket so that the propellant could evaporate.) The
situation was too precarious to allow any support staff near the
rocket while it was still fueled.
Finally after the staff settled down, a calm voice arose from the
group and recommended that they allow the onboard battery to discharge
(something it would do on its own). This would cause the fueling
valves to revert to their open, inactive position. This would allow
the fuel to evaporate away at ambient temperature. A few quick back
of the envelope calculations indicated that this would take the
remainder of the day and that by the next morning, it would be safe to
approach the rocket.
Krantz wrote: I learned my first rule of flight control – when you
don't know what to do, then do NOTHING. Acting in the dark he
reasoned was more likely to make things worse, not better.
We would be likewise well advised. Otherwise we may be wasting
substantial resources on a diversionary attack.
Ian St. John
"Ken Clement" <k...@clement.name> wrote in message
news:355431eb.0207...@posting.google.com...
> Thomas Palm <thoma...@chello.se> wrote in message
> > So how long does the warming have to go on before you are convinced?
> > That the theory hasn't yet been falsified doesn't prove it is
> > correct, and that will be true no matter how much climate change we
> > see.
>
> My problem is that unlike theories about the Universe's expansion or
> the mass of neutrinos - this one is being used as a basis for
> substantial policy proposals that carry consequence.
There will be consequences to unchecked GW and ACC, so it is not a choice
between no problem and taking action.
Beyond the known consequences ( mostly in hydrological cycles, causing
drought or flood ) there are the possibility of critical events causing
disasterous changes, such as shutdown of the THC or melting of the Greenland
Ice Sheet, or X( the unknown big surprise).
The consequences of climate change due to GW are fairly well established.
The consequences of CO2 emission reductions are very hard to calculate since
some initiatives will have net benefit and others will be complete frauds.
The proper course of action is to take measured steps with due dilligence to
promote the best of these initiatives and develop the basis for new
inititiatives under careful scrutiny.
If this is an objection to Kyoto, remember that Kyoto just sets *targets*.
It does not restrict methods.
Thomas Palm
> Thomas Palm <thoma...@chello.se> wrote in message
> > So how long does the warming have to go on before you are convinced?
> > That the theory hasn't yet been falsified doesn't prove it is
> > correct, and that will be true no matter how much climate change we
> > see.
>
> My problem is that unlike theories about the Universe's expansion or
> the mass of neutrinos - this one is being used as a basis for
> substantial policy proposals that carry consequence.
Yes, it has consequences, but it has consequences either way. You
seem to think that it is safe to wait and do nothing until we have
more data. Nothing is further from the truth. Doing nothing in this
case continuing to emit large amounts of gasses that is very likely
to have large consequences for the climate for many centuries ahead.
> All of the proposals being made for "solving the problem" either make
> too small a dent in the CO2 levels to matter (even assuming the
> underlying models are accurate) or they carry such dire economic
> consequences (or both) that I believe that we had better be damn sure
> we know what we are doing.
While I'd say we had better be damn sure what we are doing before
we continue to emit gasses with undersirable properties. Even doing
a little, which can even be done at negative cost, will buy us some
more time to get more data, and it will pave the ground for more
drastic cuts further ahead.
> The Earth has undergone warming (and subsequent cooling) in the
> historic past unconnected with industrial activity. (Greenland once
> warmed for a few centuries long enough to be briefly settled by
> Vikings before the climate turned cold again.) Given this knowledge -
> that climate changes happen naturally for reasons not well understood
> - it would behoove us to be careful.
You are right that we should be careful, but not the way you think.
The natural fluctuations show that the climate is not as stable as
we would wish, and thus that any perturbation we make may interact
and be amplified. The potential halting of the Gulf stream is an
example of such an amplification.
> After all major surprises in a relatively new field is nothing
> unexpected. For example, we've just learned that the rate of the
> universe's expansion is INCREASING.
I wouldn't bet on it. This value has been bouncing up and down
a long time, and I'm far from sure that the current data will
survive the test of time.
> Agreed. But we also bear in mind that there is always a "none of the
> above" possibility, especially in a new field. There is no guarantee
> that we have thought of everything or even the most important things.
> There is also no guarantee that the metrics that are being used are
> not faulty. They should improve with time provided open inquiry is
> being aggressively pursued. With the politicization of this issue, I
> have my doubts.
Just remember that errors can go both ways. The current estimates
are the best we can do at the moment and it is just as likely
they are too optimistic as too pessimistic. I'd even say it is
more likely they are too optimistic. Since just about any climate
change is for the worse there is only one state we want and a
large number of undesirable ones. It is unlikely that errors
will conspire to ensure that the climate remains constant. It is
much more likely that they will just mean that they will cause
the climate to change some other way than predicted. Ending up
in a desert isn't that much better than being flooded.
> > #2 would
> > have to be considered very likely because it is based on other
> > well established scientific theories and that there is no competing
> > theory that can explain the warming as well.
>
> How hard are environmental scientists really looking?
Why do you call them environmental scientists rather than climatologists
or any other more neutral term? You seem to think they all have the same
political agenda. If you consider people like Lindzen, Christy, Singer,
Seitz etc they have been looking very hard for any kind of evidence that
the warming is not anthropogenic, but so far their results haven't been
that impressive.
> > Being a sceptic is fine, but in situations with limited information
> > and where our actions have consequences we often can't wait until
> > all the evidence is in. Waiting is an action that has consequences
> > too.
> >
> Doing the wrong thing – or placing a new scientific discipline in
> disrepute because it is used to issue premature and alarmist
> recommendations – also carries consequences.
Not warning for a threat that turns out to be true also carries
consequences. Not only will we have changed the climate of Earth,
but the trust in science and technology will have taken another
hit, and we are likely to see a significant backlash.
You have to compare the probability and the risks of erring in
either direction. As far as I see it erring on the side of caution
carries a lot less risks.
> To date, all public proposals that have been advanced to deal with CO2
> barely make a dent in the CO2 level even assuming they are strictly
> followed (a doubtful proposition at best).
It is possible to reduce emissions as seen from where I live:
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/emis/swe.htm
We switched from oil to nuclear power and also made efforts to reduce
energy consumption. This was a huge reduction compared to what is so
controverial in Kyoto. Admittedly we will find it slightly harder to
continue downwards, but that is because we are already far below most
other industrialized countries and because of a political resistance
to nuclear power.
> When the formulation of
> public policy comes into play, the endeavor becomes more than
> scientific in nature. It becomes more of an exercise in engineering
> and persuasion.
Just add a tax to carbon emissions and let people scream. They'll
soon tire and start inventing ways of reducing their now expensive
emissions.
> As an exercise in engineering – economic analysis is at least as
> important as the underlying environmental science. It may well be
> that the economic costs are simply too great even if the problem is
> real. In that case, attempts at CO2 reduction may be doomed to
> failure and may impoverish the world's economies to the point of
> making them less able to deal with the consequences when they do
> happen.
That kind of analysis has been done and shows that considerable
reductions can be done with negligible cost. You just have to step
on some toes, because some people profit a lot from the current
situation where you can pollute for free.
> As I see it, the question is: What makes more economic sense –
> avoiding the consequences or dealing with them when they occur? I do
> not pretend to know. At the present time environmentalists shouldn't
> either.
You may pretend that you don't make a decision, but that is in
itself a decision. If you wake up in the middle of the night
and smell smoke, it may be coming from some distant fire, but it
may also come from your own house. If you remain in bed waiting
for further evidence it may very well be too late to get out if
it was your house that was on fire.
> I am however pointing out that nothing we know how to or are likely to
> do over the next decade is going to make much of a dent in the
> atmospheric CO2 levels. That is about how long I estimate it will
> take for responsible, aggressive scientific investigation to shed
> enough light on the issues I raised earlier so as to permit rational
> and effective policy decisions to be made. It may turn out that doing
> nothing is indeed the best course.
No matter when we start, nothing much will happen the first several
years. It takes time to change the course of a supertanker. If
we don't do anything now it will just be that much harder to do
something in a decade, not to mention that there will still be
people who claim that in another decade there will be even more
evidence available so you can make an even better plan.
Doing a little today may mean that we don't build a new coal plant.
Delaying the decision may mean that we first build the plant and
then have to close it and crash build something else instead. Which
do you think is cheapest?
> Krantz wrote: I learned my first rule of flight control – when you
> don't know what to do, then do NOTHING. Acting in the dark he
> reasoned was more likely to make things worse, not better.
This is sometimes a good idea. On the other hand as I've already
pointed out, releasing lots of CO2 in the atmosphere isn't really
doing nothing. We also already have a lot of information, you are
just too much of a perfectionist. We will _never_ have access to
perfect information.
Forkboy2
>
> It is possible to reduce emissions as seen from where I live:
> http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/emis/swe.htm
> We switched from oil to nuclear power and also made efforts to reduce
> energy consumption. This was a huge reduction compared to what is so
> controverial in Kyoto. Admittedly we will find it slightly harder to
> continue downwards, but that is because we are already far below most
> other industrialized countries and because of a political resistance
> to nuclear power.
>
I know this is kinda of beside the point, but in 10 or 20 years
environmentalists will still have the exact same complaints about 1.6 metric
tons of carbon per capita as they did 20 years ago when it was 3
tons/capita. Lets say that in 50 years you get it down to 0.2 tons per
capita. Hey wouldn't that be wonderful? Nope, environmentalists will STILL
make the same arguements that it is way to much and the world is going to
end if nothing is done about it. It never ends.
Matt
Thomas Palm
> I know this is kinda of beside the point, but in 10 or 20 years
> environmentalists will still have the exact same complaints about 1.6 metric
> tons of carbon per capita as they did 20 years ago when it was 3
> tons/capita. Lets say that in 50 years you get it down to 0.2 tons per
> capita. Hey wouldn't that be wonderful? Nope, environmentalists will STILL
> make the same arguements that it is way to much and the world is going to
> end if nothing is done about it. It never ends.
There is a trade-off between human consumption and room for other creatures,
and there will always be some people who claim that we are grabbing too much
for ourselves. What will change is that the number of people who wants
further reductions will decrease as the perceived damage goes down.
Note that here I'm talking about people wanting to protect the environment
as opposed to just protecting humans, because those are who I would call
environmentalists. At the moment you don't have to be an environmentalist
to want to reduce CO2 emissions, being a humanitarian is just as fine.
Come back with your complaint when we have reduced our emissions to a
point where it is a matter of protecting the environment rather than
ourselvelves. Then we can discuss it further.
Lloyd Parker
"Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote:
>In other words you don't know of anything that shows that petition to
be a
>fraud.
Much has been written about just that. Scientific American ran an
article, for example.
>Again, all I'm trying to figure out is if there really truely is
>this consensus of scientists with applicable backgrounds that believe
the
>effects of GW, if left unchecked, are going to lead to climatalogical
>disasters on a planetary scale.
I doubt most would say exactly that, scientists being a cautious lot.
>If there is a consensus then where did
>these 2,660 Physicist, Geophysicist, Climatologists, Meteorologist,
>Oceanographser and Environmental Scientists come from?
How do you know any of them, much less 2660, are those specialities?
> That is a lot of
>scientists that are willing to put their name and professional
reputation on
>the line in speaking out against the doomsayers.
How do you know they're even scientists?
Besides, that "petition" is out of date. Lots of scientists who may
have been skeptical even 5 years ago are now convinced that GW is real.
>That's a lot of scientific
>opinions just to discount outright.
>
>> Try to take a random sample in the list. Pick some people with
unusual
>> names and search for them on the web. If they are scientists they
should
>> almost certainly be found, together with some indication of their
field
>> of expertise. That way you can decide for yourself how relevant they
>> are.
>
>I have a feeling that this has already been attempted by the opponents
of
>the petition. If the signers weren't reputable I'm sure it would be
>plastered all over a pro GW web site somewhere.
Have you looked?
>Especially since there have
>been claims made against the expertise of the signers of the pro-GW
>petition.
>
>> Call it a fraud or not, but it was clearly made to collect as many
>> signatories using whatever dirty tricks required. It was sent to
>> _a lot_ of people, by a former president of the NSA including an
>> article that was formatted to look as if it had been published in
>> their journal while in reality it is propagandistic junk, not fit
>> to publish anywhere. (Although supposedly it was eventually
published
>> in the "journal of borderline science".
>
>So they were all tricked into signing it. Ya, because those people
with PHD
>behind their name have a real problem with their reading comprehension
>skills. The letter probably went something like this: "Hi Dr. So and
So,
>please read this article and then discard everything you already know
about
>GW and put your name and professional reputation on the line by making
an
>affermitive statement about your thoughts on GW based on this
article."
>Maybe you're right and that is how it happened.
>
>Matt
1. How do you know those people exist?
2. If they do, how do you know they're scientists?
3. If they are, how do you know what their field is?
4. If it's appropriate, how do you know they signed?
5. If they did, how do you know they haven't changed their minds?
Lloyd Parker
k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote:
>Scott Douglas <s_do...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<Xns924431BDE...@216.221.81.119>...
>> k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
>> > So, if I understand your assertions we have two falsifiable
>> > hypothesis:
>> >
>> > #1. The Rise in the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is due
>> > primarily to human activities - principally burning fossil fuels.
>>
>> Which is proven by the study of the isotopic concentration of
Carbon and
>> other trace gasses associated with the various sources of carbon.
>
>Proven? That's quite a strong word. "Indicated" or "strongly
>indicated" I might accept. At least I would take the claim seriously.
> Good scientific writing is also careful writing. But to call it
>proven is to go beyond the certainty of the available evidence. The
>Earth's climate has undergone warming before - even in historical
>times. Given that these were also pre-industrial times and that their
>causes are still not identified, more caution is called for. After
>all - history could be repeating itself.
They were not global.
>
>> Also
>> proven by the tracking of Co2 output with estimates of the amount of
carbon
>> entering into the atmosphere from the activities of man.
>>
>
>How good are these estimates?
Quite.
>Of all of the proposals for CO2
>reduction presently before us, how much would the CO2 levels be
>reduced?
Too many variables for a simple answer, as it depends on when you
begin, how many nations participate, etc.
>Within what confidence limits? The answers I have heard
>have varied wildly except that most agree that the present proposals
>would barely make a dent in it.
If we all reduced to the 1990 levels of CO2 emissions, and cut methane,
nitrogen oxides, CFCs, etc., even more drastically, we could make a
good dent.
Or it may be underestimated. The current estimate is the best science
can do, and it's alarming.
>
>>
>> It is a basic consequence of radiative physics that if you add an
>> insulating layer to a surface that is being heated, the surface will
>> increae[sic] it's temperature.
>
>But as you pointed out: "All other things being equal."
>
>How good are out current models tracking increasing CO2 atmospheric
>concentration to retained heat from the Sun? How much variance is
>there between different models? I do not have a great deal of
>confidence in the current predictive models. Is there any reason I
>should?
The best climate models now predict today's climate based on earlier
data quite well, so yes.
>
>>
>> k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
>> > These resilience of these hypothesis is what will eventually
settle
>> > the matter. For now, the skeptic in me is still skeptical about
most
>> > environmentalist claims.
>>
>> Then you are skeptical about most scientific claims as well.
>
>As the only person in the Universe who can speak with absolute
>authority on what my scientific views are: You are wrong.
>
>I have however learned that not all branches of science are equally
>mature, not all scientists are equally capable, and no one is immune
>to outside influences in forming
>
>> Even when they are claimed by the consensus of the world[']s
scientists.
>
>Wrong again. The statement above should have read: "Even when they
>are claimed by a consensus..." There is also a consensus of competent
>antithetical opinion.
>
>>
>> Quite pathetic.
>
>As I pointed out in my original post, condescension is not going to
>change anyone's mind about anything. (You seem resistant to this
>idea.) In the context of the current subject matter, it is also not
>indicative of a sound scientific foundation.
>
>I remain skeptical.
As little as 5 years ago, so was I. But the data keeps coming in, and
it's all supporting warming occurring, mostly due to human activities.
Lloyd Parker
Heck, we can't "estimate" what a single electron is going to do, but we
use quantum theory in everything from fusion (the sun) to computers.
You don't have to have 100% certainty in science to take action, you
know. (In fact, with quantum mechanics at one end and chaos theory at
the other, you'll seldom have it.)
Lloyd Parker
k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote:
>Thomas Palm <thoma...@chello.se> wrote in message
>> So how long does the warming have to go on before you are convinced?
>> That the theory hasn't yet been falsified doesn't prove it is
>> correct, and that will be true no matter how much climate change we
>> see.
>
>My problem is that unlike theories about the Universe's expansion or
>the mass of neutrinos - this one is being used as a basis for
>substantial policy proposals that carry consequence.
>
>All of the proposals being made for "solving the problem" either make
>too small a dent in the CO2 levels to matter (even assuming the
>underlying models are accurate) or they carry such dire economic
>consequences (or both) that I believe that we had better be damn sure
>we know what we are doing.
>
>The Earth has undergone warming (and subsequent cooling) in the
>historic past unconnected with industrial activity.
1. Usually not globally.
2. Over millenia, giving plants and animals time to evolve and adapt.
(Greenland once
>warmed for a few centuries long enough to be briefly settled by
>Vikings before the climate turned cold again.)
Greenland is now the entire globe?
>Given this knowledge -
>that climate changes happen naturally for reasons not well understood
>- it would behoove us to be careful.
>
>After all major surprises in a relatively new field is nothing
>unexpected. For example, we've just learned that the rate of the
>universe's expansion is INCREASING. Since Newton we have assumed that
>gravity is the dominant force on the largest scales and since Hubble
>we have known that the Universe is expanding. It was always believed
>however that the expansion was slowing down due to mutual
>gravitational attraction. Apparently, it isn't. Fortunately, this
>has no public policy implications.
>
>The large scale study of the Earth's environment is also a new field.
But not chemistry. CO2 absorbs heat just as it has been known to do
for some time. Absorbed heat raised temperatures, just as it has been
known to do for some time (even back when it was called "caloric").
>
>>
>> Considering whether a theory is falsifiable is a good criterium[sic]
>> to decide whether or not it is science, but it doesn't say much
>> about whether it is a good description of reality. To do that one
>> has to look at all different theories that claims to describe
>> reality and chose the one that fits best and does so with the
>> least amount of special assumptions.
>
>Agreed. But we also bear in mind that there is always a "none of the
>above" possibility, especially in a new field. There is no guarantee
>that we have thought of everything or even the most important things.
>There is also no guarantee that the metrics that are being used are
>not faulty. They should improve with time provided open inquiry is
>being aggressively pursued. With the politicization of this issue, I
>have my doubts.
If you wait until a problem is proven statistically at the 95% level,
it may be too late to do anything about it. Why risk our only planet?
>
>>
>> #1 would then have to be considered true simply because there is
>> no competing explanation with any shred of credibility.
>
>I disagree. (See above.) To establish that #1 is true it is also
>necessary to show that no competing explanation is likely possible –
>and that alternative factors are not significant. For example, if
>some natural or human-induced variation has occurred in the rate at
>which atmospheric CO2 is absorbed and removed from the atmosphere,
>this could be the principal cause of elevated CO2 levels.
So how do you explain every combustion, producing CO2, yet this not
increasing the atmospheric CO2? Is the added CO2 being converted to
gold or something?
That's what the nay-sayers and industry shills said about CFCs.
> In that case, attempts at CO2 reduction may be doomed to
>failure and may impoverish the world's economies to the point of
>making them less able to deal with the consequences when they do
>happen.
>
>As I see it, the question is: What makes more economic sense –
>avoiding the consequences or dealing with them when they occur? I do
>not pretend to know. At the present time environmentalists shouldn't
>either.
>
>At present we do not have enough information to make an informed
>decision on this question. And making the WRONG decision (either way)
>definitely carries consequences.
Waiting too long does too.
Lloyd Parker
spilled half what the Exxon Valdez did too.
Steve Schulin
news:<3D292773...@chello.se>...
> Steve Schulin wrote:
> > Thomas Palm <thoma...@chello.se> wrote ...
> > > ...or in the accuracy of scientific instruments. We didn't even know
> > > that CO2 was actually increasing at any appreciable rate until Keeling
> > > measured the concentration accurately in 1960.
> >
> > Conventional wisdom wasn't too concerned even well after the rising
> > trend was quantified. In that infamous 1970s-vintage peer-reviewed
> > particulate cooling article that young Stanford professor Stephan
> > Schneider and colleague published in Science, the authors asserted
> > pretty low maximum warming expected from doubled CO2 or somesuch. It
> > passed peer review without even a reference or other footnote on this
> > point.
>
> Yes, Schneider did assume a very low value for the CO2 forcing. This
> was pointed out to him right after the article was published and the
The saturation of the 15-micrometer absorption band was key to their
calculations. The main difference between their estimate and best
previous estimate was, as best I can tell, their updated absorption
coefficients. I've searched the Science archives and seen
near-contemporaneous criticisms of the particulate cooling part of the
paper, and I would attempt to find and read with interest any accounts
that refer to the invalidating criticisms you mention regarding the
CO2 sensitivity, and would very much appreciate any recollection folks
may have to help track down any such references.
> .... The reason the paper is
> infamous is that it is more or less unique, so that greenhouse sceptics
> has to go back to this single flawed article over and over again.
The paper is very interesting in many ways. You don't see too many
exclamation marks in journal articles, so lines like "If sustained
over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease could be
sufficient to trigger an ice age!" are pretty memorable. The fact that
Dr. Schneider was so (!) in warning about particulate-induced cooling
makes for quite reasonable comparison with his more recent warnings
about enhanced greenhouse warming.
Forkboy2
> spilled half what the Exxon Valdez did too.
You'd probably also complain if it was 50 gallons. If not, where do you
draw the line and why? If you would, then thanks for making my point.
Matt
"Lloyd Parker" <lpa...@NOSPAM.emory.edu> wrote in message
news:agcqfc$7bb$1...@puck.cc.emory.edu...
Forkboy2
> In article <VjxV8.295046$_j6.14...@bin3.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com>,
> "Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote:
> >In other words you don't know of anything that shows that petition to
> be a
> >fraud.
> Much has been written about just that. Scientific American ran an
> article, for example.
I'll have to take you for your word on that since I don't subscribe and
didn't find anything on Scientific American's website of archived articles
relating to this.
> >Again, all I'm trying to figure out is if there really truely is
> >this consensus of scientists with applicable backgrounds that believe
> the
> >effects of GW, if left unchecked, are going to lead to climatalogical
> >disasters on a planetary scale.
>
> I doubt most would say exactly that, scientists being a cautious lot.
I don't think most would say that either, but that's what I keep getting
attacked for claiming. The question of whether or not GW is occuring is
different from the question of how bad are the consequences.
Here is what the petition states "There is no convincing scientific evidence
that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is
causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of
the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate." Notice the
word catastrophic because I think that is important. Take out the work
catastrophic and you probably lose 75% of the signers.
>
>
> >If there is a consensus then where did
> >these 2,660 Physicist, Geophysicist, Climatologists, Meteorologist,
> >Oceanographser and Environmental Scientists come from?
>
> How do you know any of them, much less 2660, are those specialities?
I'm just going off the claim made at the top of the page that lists the 2660
names and the fact that OISM claims to have confirmed 95% of the names. See
http://www.oism.org/pproject/a_sci.htm
> > That is a lot of
> >scientists that are willing to put their name and professional
> reputation on
> >the line in speaking out against the doomsayers.
>
> How do you know they're even scientists?
>
> Besides, that "petition" is out of date. Lots of scientists who may
> have been skeptical even 5 years ago are now convinced that GW is real.
That may be.
> >That's a lot of scientific
> >opinions just to discount outright.
> >
> >> Try to take a random sample in the list. Pick some people with
> unusual
> >> names and search for them on the web. If they are scientists they
> should
> >> almost certainly be found, together with some indication of their
> field
> >> of expertise. That way you can decide for yourself how relevant they
> >> are.
> >
> >I have a feeling that this has already been attempted by the opponents
> of
> >the petition. If the signers weren't reputable I'm sure it would be
> >plastered all over a pro GW web site somewhere.
>
>
> Have you looked?
Yes, I found a only a reference to a couple of obviously faked names on the
petition, which OISM also openly admits to and having removed them. Again,
I haven't see the Scientific American study, may have to try some more to
find it.
I'm taking the information at OISM at face value. I guess it is possible
OISM is just making the whole thing up, but they claim to have confirmed 95%
of the names, including what scientific field they are in. The list is
divided into the different expertise levels. For example they specifically
list out 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists,
oceanographers, and environmental scientists as well as another 5,017
scientists whose fields of specialization in chemistry, biochemistry,
biology, and other life sciences. http://www.oism.org/pproject/a_sci.htm or
http://www.oism.org/pproject/b_sci.htm
Matt
Andrew Taylor
Forkboy2 <no...@none.com> wrote:
>I'll have to take you for your word on that since I don't subscribe and
>didn't find anything on Scientific American's website of archived articles
>relating to this.
Google still has it cached at:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:SVpTVA_iHDEC:www.sciam.com/2001/1001issue/1001scicit1.html
The relevant excerpt is:
"Scientific American took a random sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories
claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were
able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the
petition--one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant
expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said
they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such
petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely
extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate
researchers--a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of
the climatological community."
Andrew Taylor
Thomas Palm
> > was pointed out to him right after the article was published and the
> > result was therefore considered not valid. ...
>
> The saturation of the 15-micrometer absorption band was key to their
> calculations. The main difference between their estimate and best
> previous estimate was, as best I can tell, their updated absorption
> coefficients. I've searched the Science archives and seen
> near-contemporaneous criticisms of the particulate cooling part of the
> paper, and I would attempt to find and read with interest any accounts
> that refer to the invalidating criticisms you mention regarding the
> CO2 sensitivity, and would very much appreciate any recollection folks
> may have to help track down any such references.
As pointed out by Connolley and Halpern, the fact that it was a
low estimate was mentioned in a footnote to the paper, so I was
wrong. (Reminds me of an old book by Eddington I came upon where
he discussed the age of the universe and there was a footnote
that there was this chap Hubble who had a completely different
view than everyone else)
> > .... The reason the paper is
> > infamous is that it is more or less unique, so that greenhouse sceptics
> > has to go back to this single flawed article over and over again.
>
> The paper is very interesting in many ways. You don't see too many
> exclamation marks in journal articles, so lines like "If sustained
> over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease could be
> sufficient to trigger an ice age!" are pretty memorable. The fact that
> Dr. Schneider was so (!) in warning about particulate-induced cooling
> makes for quite reasonable comparison with his more recent warnings
> about enhanced greenhouse warming.
You don't know if if was Rasool or Schneider who put in the exclamation
mark. Rasool was the first author and thus primarily responsible for
the paper.
Anyway, all it would indicate is that Scheider unlike the "ivory tower"
scientist was concerned about the importance of his research to society
even at this point. Hardly surprising given his later performance.
The authors did exactly what responsible scientists should do: they
found a potential problem so they published an article in the scientific
press to see if the result could be confirmed. It turned it it wasn't,
and for other reasons the amount of aerosols emitted never reached the
feared values so this particular problem was written off.
I fear that in the current politicised environment such a paper might
not be published out of fear that it could come back and haunt the
authors. Scientists are supposed to be allowed to publish results
that are wrong occasionally without someone digging them up decades
after the fact and using them in a smear campaign!
Steve Schulin
news:<3d29...@audacity.velocet.net>...
> "Steve Schulin" <nucl...@comcast.net> wrote ...
> >
> > Like I said -- I'd love to read the full text of this peer-reviewed
> > journal article.
>
> And you know it is peer reviewed how? If you can't find it, you can hardly
> know if it was accepted as a peer reviewed forum article or a non reviewed
> research report of research paper.
> http://www.arnoldpublishers.com/journals/pages/holocene/aut.htm shows the
> classes of published works.
You may have misread the information at the link you provide -- all
three of the classes are said to be peer reviewed.
Ian St. John
Hmm. Right. Only mentioned in the one category. Still, even peer reviewed
opinion is still opinion. There is something subjective about the presumed
motivations and conclusions even if the statistics stands up.
Forkboy2
article at http://www.prwatch.org/improp/oism.html that went into some more
detail on the petition. Definately looks like there is reason to be
suspicious of the petition signatures. To bad Scientific American only
looked at a very small sample (30) of the signers.
Matt
"Andrew Taylor" <and...@cse.unsw.edu.au> wrote in message
news:agddhp$5qt$1...@rana.cse.unsw.edu.au...
Lloyd Parker
"Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote:
>
Perhaps; that and "foreseeable" gives them some wiggle room, although
several examiners of the so-called petition have, as I said, found it
woefully and willfully misrepresents the signers.
>
>
>
>>
>>
>> >If there is a consensus then where did
>> >these 2,660 Physicist, Geophysicist, Climatologists, Meteorologist,
>> >Oceanographser and Environmental Scientists come from?
>>
>> How do you know any of them, much less 2660, are those specialities?
>
>I'm just going off the claim made at the top of the page that lists
the 2660
>names and the fact that OISM claims to have confirmed 95% of the
names. See
>http://www.oism.org/pproject/a_sci.htm
That's like accounting industry policing itself.
Taking a right-wing lobbying group at face value on a scientific issue
is not a good idea.
> I guess it is possible
>OISM is just making the whole thing up, but they claim to have
confirmed 95%
>of the names, including what scientific field they are in.
Arthur Anderson claimed Enron was solvent too.
Steve Schulin
> nucl...@comcast.net (Steve Schulin) wrote:
> >"Ian St. John" <ist...@spamcop.net> wrote ...
> >> >
> >> > Chambers and Brain, University of Gloucestershire ...
> >> > [Paradigm shifts in late-Holocene climatology?
> >> > The Holocene 12(2):239-249, 1 March 2002].
> >> >
> >> > climatic change, it will be necessary to evaluate
> >> > palaeoclimate data that derive from a wide
> >> > range of complementary sources - sedimentological,
> >> > biological, archaeological and documentary - and to
> >> > compare the magnitude, rate and frequency of past climatic
> >> > changes implied in those data with recorded twentieth-century
> >> > 'global' changes and projected twenty-first-century scenarios.
> >>
> >> Now that is crap. ...
> >
> >It sounds quite similar to what IPCC has said: "... a better
> >understanding of past variations is essential if we are to estimate
> >reliably the extent to which the warming over the last century, and
> >future warming ..."
>
> Heck, we can't "estimate" what a single electron is going to do, but we
> use quantum theory in everything from fusion (the sun) to computers.
> You don't have to have 100% certainty in science to take action, you
> know. (In fact, with quantum mechanics at one end and chaos theory at
> the other, you'll seldom have it.)
I don't think the Brain and Chambers recommendation to obtain a clear
perspective, nor the IPCC recommendation to reliably estimate past and
future trends, are so preposterous. In fact, in sounds downright
reasonable compared to demands that CO2 emissions and many related
activities be controlled by international planners. There are
significant uncertainties related to virtually every scientific and
policy aspect of the climate change debate, and that includes the
subject of whether enhanced greenhouse effect will be harmful or
beneficial.
Scott Douglas
> draw the line and why? If you would, then thanks for making my point.
What makes you think there is a fixed line?
Fuel economy is a function of environmental impact. If there were
1/100th the cars on the road that there are today, fuel efficiency
standards for cars could be far lower.
Ultimately what matters is the total impact on the environment.
It's rather shocking that you wouldn't understand such an obvious thing.
Forkboy2
> 1/100th the cars on the road that there are today, fuel efficiency
> standards for cars could be far lower.
Actually, ultimately what matters is the PERCEIVED impact to the environment
and/or human health. If there were 1/100th of the cars on the road with the
current emission standards there would STILL be just as many
environmentalists complaining. They would just be complaining about a 0.001
% increase in the rates of lung cancer instead of a 0.1% increase in the
rate of lung cancer. The newspaper headlines would still read "Auto
Emissions Result In Increase Risk of Lung Cancer!!". The environmentalists
would STILL get in their gas guzzeling vans to drive halfway across the
state to protest somewhere, because that is what they do.
Matt
"Scott Douglas" <s_do...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9247A6F9...@216.221.81.119...
Charlie Root
> http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E73%257E702530%257E,00.html
> Headline:
> An uphill battle?
> Doing nothing a sure path to disaster
<---x snip
*******************
Tue Jul 9 2002
Global Warming Coming to Bay Area, Scientists Say
By Sue Kwon
If you think it's hot now, scientists expect global warming (news -
web sites) to bring average temperatures in the Bay Area up by four
degrees in the next 50 years.
Researchers at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory have pictures to prove
it. The images look a lot like satellite maps, but they are new
climate simulations created by a supercomputer. The models tell
researchers that the global and Bay Area climate is changing.
"We can predict the future weather within three to four days," said
Dr. David Nowak, with the Atmospheric Science Division. "With the
global climate, we can predict the climate in 10, 20, 50 years into
the future."
Research shows global warming will push average temperatures up by
about four degrees over the next 50 years, and there's another future
change in the weather. Scientists at the labs say we will see a
significant change in precipitation in the next 50 to 100 years --
with more rain, and less snow, because of higher temperatures.
"A significant impact on the snow pack has an effect, because water
resource managers use snow pack as a reservoir," said Dr. Philip
Duffy.
The lab has turned this information over to state water officials,
while the scientists continue to create more long-range models using
the world's fastest computer.
"If you think of it as laptops, it's taking 8000 laptops and packing
them together in one room, and making them run on the same format at
the same time," Nowak said.
It's normally used to simulate nuclear weapons tests. But it can also
take weather data from around the globe and crunch 12 trillion numbers
per second to calculate and create the most detailed global climate
simulations available. That means that images now have six times the
resolution that they did before, helping scientists see the future of
our climate more clearly.
*******************
Scott Douglas
> Actually, ultimately what matters is the PERCEIVED impact to the
> environment and/or human health. If there were 1/100th of the cars on
> the road with the current emission standards there would STILL be just
> as many environmentalists complaining.
do you always convict without evidence on the basis of personal expection
and ideological stereotyping?
Of couse you do. Who needs justice when racism will do.
Forkboy2
more stringent than 30 years ago, the environmentalists still have many of
the exact same complaints as then and then some? All I'm saying is that in
30 more years the regulations will be that much more stringent and, BASED ON
PAST HISTORY, the environmentalists will have the same complaints.
And what exactly does racism have to do with any of this?
Matt
"Scott Douglas" <s_do...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9247291FB...@216.221.81.119...
Lloyd Parker
"Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote:
>Do you deny that even though environmental regulations have become
much much
>more stringent than 30 years ago, the environmentalists still have
many of
>the exact same complaints as then and then some? All I'm saying is
that in
>30 more years the regulations will be that much more stringent and,
BASED ON
>PAST HISTORY, the environmentalists will have the same complaints.
If you're drowning in a shark-infested sea, you probably aren't too
concerned with a toothache. Once you're out of the sea, you view the
toothache as something to complain about.
Forkboy2
> In article <LfSW8.56118$Im2.2...@bin2.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com>,
> "Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote:
> >Do you deny that even though environmental regulations have become
> much much
> >more stringent than 30 years ago, the environmentalists still have
> many of
> >the exact same complaints as then and then some? All I'm saying is
> that in
> >30 more years the regulations will be that much more stringent and,
> BASED ON
> >PAST HISTORY, the environmentalists will have the same complaints.
>
> If you're drowning in a shark-infested sea, you probably aren't too
> concerned with a toothache. Once you're out of the sea, you view the
> toothache as something to complain about.
>
Exactly, and when when the toothache goes away, you complain about something
else. The difference with extreme environmentalism is that they would say
"There's sharks in the water, if we don't do something about it the world is
going to end (or some other dire consequece)". Then when the sharks are
gone, they would say "We all have a toothaches, if we don't do something
about it something very bad is going to happen to all of us". Then when the
toothache goes away they would find something else.
Matt
Scott Douglas
> Do you deny that even though environmental regulations have become
> much much more stringent than 30 years ago, the environmentalists
> still have many of the exact same complaints as then and then some?
You do realize don't you that the original Model-T's gas milage was
essentially the same (24mpg) as today's SUV?
You silly boy you.
"Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote
> All I'm saying is that in 30 more years the regulations will be that
> much more stringent and, BASED ON PAST HISTORY, the environmentalists
> will have the same complaints.
If the same problems persist, then you indeed will see the same
complaints.
What rational person would oppose this?
"Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote
> And what exactly does racism have to do with any of this?
It's just another form of the same group stereotyping that you are
applying.
Scott Douglas
>"There's sharks in the water, if we don't do something
> about it the world is going to end (or some other dire consequece)".
You know, I keep hearing anti-environmentalists making the above claim, but
I never seem to hear it from the environmental community.
Why is that ForkBoy?
"Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote in
> Then when the sharks are gone, they would say "We all have a
> toothaches, if we don't do something about it something very bad is
> going to happen to all of us".
Is it coincidence that AntiEnvironmentalists ForkBoy subconsiously
envisions a future where sharks are extinct?
Doubtful.
Forkboy2
> "Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote
> > Do you deny that even though environmental regulations have become
> > much much more stringent than 30 years ago, the environmentalists
> > still have many of the exact same complaints as then and then some?
>
> You do realize don't you that the original Model-T's gas milage was
> essentially the same (24mpg) as today's SUV?
>
> You silly boy you.
Not sure what you'r point is here, but I rarely do understand what your
point is. Are you trying to say an SUV isn't any more efficient than a
Model T?? Let's see....an SUV probably weighs at least 3-5 times as much as
a Model-T, not to mention the fact that a Model-T probabaly did about 25 mph
tops. Stick an engine from a modern SUV into a Model-T, drive 25 mph and
your going to get at least 75-100 miles per gallon.
>
> "Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote
> > All I'm saying is that in 30 more years the regulations will be that
> > much more stringent and, BASED ON PAST HISTORY, the environmentalists
> > will have the same complaints.
>
> If the same problems persist, then you indeed will see the same
> complaints.
>
> What rational person would oppose this?
Someone who disagrees with the perceived severity of the "problem"
>
> "Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote
> > And what exactly does racism have to do with any of this?
>
> It's just another form of the same group stereotyping that you are
> applying.
This whole discussion is in generalities so obviously I'm going to be
stereotyping the "environmentalist" and you will be stereotyping the
"anti-environmentalist". There is a difference between stereotyping based
on a pattern of thoughts and beliefs as apposed to stereotyping based on the
color of one's skin.
BTW...I would not consider myself an anti-environmentalist. In fact I do
environmental consulting for a living. I just think that, in many cases,
common sense and good science is thrown out the window when it comes to
environmental issues. Obviously this occurs on both sides of the issues. On
one side you have the people that would like to see the world go back to the
way it was 200 years ago with people living off the land and not having any
toxic chemicals or pollution at all. On the other side you have people that
want it to go back to the way it was about 30 years ago when there were no
thoughts given to environmental issues at all. Most of us are somewhere in
the middle.
Matt
>
Forkboy2
> "Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote in
> >"There's sharks in the water, if we don't do something
> > about it the world is going to end (or some other dire consequece)".
>
> You know, I keep hearing anti-environmentalists making the above claim,
but
> I never seem to hear it from the environmental community.
>
> Why is that ForkBoy?
You've never heard environmentalists making claims that if X is allowed to
continue, Y will happen. Where X is any number of environmental issues from
global warming to drilling in Alaska and Y is anything from catastrophic
climate change to increased risk of cancer. That is the whole focus of the
environmental movement.
> "Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote in
> > Then when the sharks are gone, they would say "We all have a
> > toothaches, if we don't do something about it something very bad is
> > going to happen to all of us".
>
> Is it coincidence that AntiEnvironmentalists ForkBoy subconsiously
> envisions a future where sharks are extinct?
>
> Doubtful.
>
I never said anything about sharks being extinct. Interesting how you're
sub-conscious seems to think that sharks will be extinct though.
Matt
Lloyd Parker
"Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote:
>
>"Scott Douglas" <s_do...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:Xns9249A305...@216.221.81.119...
>> "Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote
>> > Do you deny that even though environmental regulations have become
>> > much much more stringent than 30 years ago, the environmentalists
>> > still have many of the exact same complaints as then and then
some?
>>
>> You do realize don't you that the original Model-T's gas milage
was
>> essentially the same (24mpg) as today's SUV?
>>
>> You silly boy you.
>
>Not sure what you'r point is here, but I rarely do understand what
your
>point is. Are you trying to say an SUV isn't any more efficient than
a
>Model T?? Let's see....an SUV probably weighs at least 3-5 times as
much as
>a Model-T, not to mention the fact that a Model-T probabaly did about
25 mph
>tops. Stick an engine from a modern SUV into a Model-T, drive 25 mph
and
>your going to get at least 75-100 miles per gallon.
No SUV gets 24 mpg, unless you're talking about coasting downhill in a
hurricane. And there are no similar measurements from the Model T.
But you might compare the 2 in terms of handling, ride, and braking;
the Model T would probably be quite comparable.
Scott Douglas
> You've never heard environmentalists making claims that if X is
> allowed to continue, Y will happen.
That wasn't your claim now was it ForkBoy2?
You were a little more sepcific.
Your claim was that if x is allowed, then the world will come to an end.
And no, I have not heard that from any environmental organization.
Why is that ForkBoy? Why is your claim at odds with fact?
And why are you now stepping back from your initial claim now that you have
been fingered?
"Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote in
>> "Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote in
>> > Then when the sharks are gone, they would say "We all have a
>> > toothaches, if we don't do something about it something very bad is
>> > going to happen to all of us".
>>
>> Is it coincidence that AntiEnvironmentalists ForkBoy subconsiously
>> envisions a future where sharks are extinct?
>>
>> Doubtful.
"Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote in
> I never said anything about sharks being extinct.
You said "when the sharks are gone..."
Now if the sharks are gone it means they are missing.
And in the context of the paragraph above, in which you clearly place no
constratints on how they sharks vanish, it is clear that you mean gone as
in dead. All dead in fact. Meaning extinct.
Once again, once you are fingered, you start to retract your statemetns.
Why is that ForkBoy2?
"Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote in
> Interesting how you're sub-conscious seems to think that sharks will be
> extinct though.
Oh, I do not for I or others like me will prevent you from extinguishing
them. By force if needed.
Forkboy2
Matt
"Scott Douglas" <s_do...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9249A99C2...@216.221.81.119...
Scott Douglas
> essentially the same (24mpg) as today's SUV?
>
> You silly boy you.
Forkboy2 writes:
> Not sure what you'r point is here, but I rarely do understand what your
> point is.
I bet you rarely understand most things.
Forkboy2 writes:
> Are you trying to say an SUV isn't any more efficient than a
> Model T??
Efficiency is a relative term. There is performance efficiency and then
there is Performance efficiency. One refers to chemical/mechanical
efficiency the other refers to the efficiency with which one fulfills the
required task.
In terms of Performance efficiency the Model T and and SUV are indeed
about the same.
Forkboy2 writes:
> Let's see....an SUV probably weighs at least 3-5 times as much
> as a Model-T,
No need for that.
> not to mention the fact that a Model-T probabaly did about
> 25 mph tops.
ModelT's were raced at 100mph, although typical speed was 25-30 yes.
Which is the typical city speed limit.
> Stick an engine from a modern SUV into a Model-T, drive 25
> mph and your going to get at least 75-100 miles per gallon.
Good suggestion. Why is the automotive industry refusing to do so?
Conspiracy? Stupidity? Are they in league with "Evil Doers"?
> "Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote
> > All I'm saying is that in 30 more years the regulations will be that
> > much more stringent and, BASED ON PAST HISTORY, the environmentalists
> > will have the same complaints.
>
> If the same problems persist, then you indeed will see the same
> complaints.
>
> What rational person would oppose this?
ForkBoy2 wrote:
> Someone who disagrees with the perceived severity of the "problem"
In other words a moron who puts persnal ideology over the findings of
science.
Thank you for admitting the origin of your ignorance ForkBoy2.
> "Forkboy2" <no...@none.com> wrote
> > And what exactly does racism have to do with any of this?
>
> It's just another form of the same group stereotyping that you are
> applying.
ForkBoy2 wrote:
> This whole discussion is in generalities so obviously I'm going to be
> stereotyping the "environmentalist" and you will be stereotyping the
> "anti-environmentalist".
I have not done so yet. I am more interested in investigating your
personal brand of ignorance at the moment.
ForkBoy2 wrote:
> There is a difference between stereotyping based on a pattern of
> thoughts and beliefs as apposed to stereotyping based on the
> color of one's skin.
Unless of course the pattern of behaviour that you aledge is a
fabrication. Which it appears to be the case with your complaint against
environmentalists as far as I can see so far.
ForkBoy2 wrote:
> BTW...I would not consider myself an anti-environmentalist. In fact I do
> environmental consulting for a living. I just think that, in many cases,
> common sense and good science is thrown out the window when it comes to
> environmental issues. Obviously this occurs on both sides of the issues.
I agree with you, it often is. The public are ignorant, and industry can
not be trusted to act in the public interest. So which side do rational
minds support if they wish to support the public interest?
Why the public of course. But in all specific cases one defends the
findings of science unless otherwise compelled by morality or personal
expertise to vary from the default path.
ForkBoy2 wrote:
> On one side you have the people that would like to see the world go back
> to the way it was 200 years ago with people living off the land and not
> having any toxic chemicals or pollution at all.
I have never met an environmentalist on line or in person who wants such
a thing. Many want a return to a combined technological/agrarian
existance, not only for the health benefits, but also for the reduction in
the human footprint on the environment, and for the increase in leasure
time.
They fully understand that in a world where products are designed to
fail, and designed to prevent the replacement of failed parts, as a group
they are forced to endure pointless labour whose only purpose is not to
improve the lives of the population but to service the corporate elite and
keep them in a position of powere where they can continue to milk the
working classes.
ForkBoy2 wrote:
> On the other side you have people that want it to go back to the way it
> was about 30 years ago when there were no thoughts given to environmental
> issues at all. Most of us are somewhere in the middle.
I am 42 years old and remember 30 years ago quite well. The environmental
movement was well established at that point. Without the movement the real
progress (although quite insuffiicent) that has been made would not have
been made.
Scott Douglas
Ian St. John
"Ken Clement" <k...@clement.name> wrote in message
news:355431eb.02070...@posting.google.com...news:<Xns924431BDE...@216.221.81.119>...
> > k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> > > So, if I understand your assertions we have two falsifiable
> > > hypothesis:
> > >
> > > #1. The Rise in the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is due
> > > primarily to human activities - principally burning fossil fuels.
> >
> > Which is proven by the study of the isotopic concentration of Carbon
and
> > other trace gasses associated with the various sources of carbon.
>
> Proven? That's quite a strong word. "Indicated" or "strongly
> indicated" I might accept.
I assume that if you weight a pound of potatoes you then are limited to
'indicate' or 'strongly indicating' that the potatoes weigh one pound. After
all, the scale could be wrong. In fact, you shouldn't have to pay for one
pound of potatoes just because the calibrated and certified scale says the
potatoes weight one pound. You should be able to pick your own number,
right?
Duuuuhhh. 'Proven' beyond a shadow of a doubt, and no less certain than that
your grocer isn't going to believe your skepticism and charge you for half a
pound or whatever you decide is more 'realisitic'. If you don't accept this,
I wonder at how you manage to get through the day.
> At least I would take the claim
seriously.
> Good scientific writing is also careful writing. But to call it
> proven is to go beyond the certainty of the available evidence.
Untrue. One 'proves' that the potatoes weight one pound by weighing them on
a calibrated and certified instrument. One determines the concentration of
isotopes in the same way. You cannot avoid the consequences of the data by
an ignorant skepticism.
>
The
> Earth's climate has undergone warming before - even in historical
> times. Given that these were also pre-industrial times and that their
> causes are still not identified, more caution is called for. After
> all - history could be repeating itself.
In a few million years, the climate will change again and this will not be
due to man because man will have no fossil fuels to cause it. Otoh, it is
hardly significant to talking about CO2 increases and resulting GW/ACC as it
is totally off topic.
>
> > Also
> > proven by the tracking of Co2 output with estimates of the amount of
carbon
> > entering into the atmosphere from the activities of man.
> >
>
> How good are these estimates?
Quite good. Since these are records of production and delivery of goods for
tax purposes.
> Of all of the proposals for CO2
> reduction presently before us, how much would the CO2 levels be
> reduced?
Hard to say. We only have proposals in EU. Some reductions, such as China
are driven by economics ( more efficient power production) and others are
totally unregulated ( such as the U.S. and Oz) You would first have to get a
global agreement on emisision tracking and control, and then examine the
proposed regulations and technologies. The only thing certain at this time
is that some countries are doing quite well, and others are doing nothing.
> Within what confidence limits? The answers I have heard
> have varied wildly except that most agree that the present proposals
> would barely make a dent in it.
I have no 'confidence limits' when I slam on the brakes to avoid an
accident. I may hit. I may stop in time. What matters is slamming on the
brakes as hard and as fast as possible.
>
> >
> > > #2. The apparent rise in the average temperature of the Earth is due
> > > to rising CO2 levels.
> >
> > A fact which is accepted by the consensus of the worlds scientists.
> >
>
> What are you calling a fact?
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000D4FEC-7D5B-1D07-8E49809EC588EE
DF&catID=2
"Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle
of a hierarchy of certainty--above a mere hypothesis but below a law.
Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National
Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated
explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts,
laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." No amount of validation changes a
theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So
when scientists talk about the theory of evolution--or the atomic theory or
the theory of relativity, for that matter--they are not expressing
reservations
about its truth."
'Theory' is another term for scienific fact, as established by a consensus
of the scientific community. The scienific community has taken the synthesis
report of the IPCC as scientific fact since about 1992 or so. You cannot
counter facts with denialism.
> The historically recent rise in
average
> temperature of the Earth? (I agree - this fact is established beyond
> reasonable doubt though there is some disagreement on its exact
> magnitude.)
True. It is likely to be larger than estimated.
> Or that it is principally due to rising CO2 levels.
(This
> claim is plausible but not certain enough to be a fact.)
The scientific community disageees.
>
Remember
> that the Earth has experienced warming episodes in the historically
> recent past that certainly are not due to industrial activities.
That is not a scientific fact. The MWP is only documented as a systematic
Northern Hemisphere Extratropics warming. It was NOT established as global.
The LIA *may* be global and is documented as being probably due to a 0.24
percent change in solar irradiation ( Maunder Minimum ) which led to a
signfiicant change in the solar forcing of about 1.96 W/m^2 or less than
current GHG forcing.
However, the point is that we KNOW and have very well documented FACTS that
tell us how the current global temperature is acting and why. I find Bill
robbing my house. Is Bill not guilty of robbing my house because there are
many other robberies and none of them are due to Bill? How can we run a
society that way?
>
Nor
> has it to my knowledge been shown that CO2 levels rose at that time
> due to some other circumstance.
Nothing restricts climate or temperature changes to one particular cause. In
the MWP it was probably changes in ocean currents. In the LIA it was
probably due to a solar constant change.
> >
> > But to be more clear. The consensus holds that at least the majority
of
> > he observed warming of the earth is caused by the increase in CO2
levels.
> >
>
> I do not dispute that a body of opinion holds this to be true. It may
> even be a "consensus" depending on how one scores that determination.
It is not "may be". You seem to have the same honesty as an ice skating
competition judge. Surveys of the peer reviewed literature will find few if
any paper that do not accept GW as a fact, and due primarily to GHGs. This
is the consensus of science.
> It is however the facts that must ultimately govern the outcome. I
> have a problem with the claim that the number of scientists who
> advocate this viewpoint, and moreover who believe the environmental
> catastrophism so often advanced, is as overwhelming as portrayed.
SO. You do not really have a problem with GW ( which is proven ) but with
climate change ( which is stll being developed ). Why then, do you keep
attacking the theory of GW due primarily to GHGs? Why not accept the facts
and move on?
>
> >
> > k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> > > #1 is falsifiable because a measured leveling off or decrease in CO2
> > > levels not simultaneous with decreasing relevant human activities
> > > would be a contradiction.
> >
> > All other things being equal.
> >
>
> All other things are NEVER truly equal. If caution is not to be
> employed in making claims (what is proved vs. indicated; catastrophic
> environmental consequences; etc.) then it should not be used in
> formulating the falsifiable hypothesis.
??? How do you prove that their will be a *catastrophic* climate shift? We
do not have a complete theory of climate change! The models only tell us
that certain patterns of modification and we know that this will lead to
costly changes to adapt to a changing climate. There is also a likely
increase in severe weather losses. However, is this 'catastrophy', and does
it take a catastrophe to spur action?
The massive scale of the climate change along with the relative ease of
reducing it by getting at the source argues that the most cost effective
solution lies in reducing CO2 discharge rates and finding the best balance
between mitigation and adaptation. It also reduces the risk of catastrophic
changes such as the THC shutdown, melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet ( which
has happened in previous interglacials it should be noted ) and X ( the
disaster we *didn't* even have a clue about ).
>
> >
> >
> >
> > k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> > > #2 is falsifiable because a subsequent cooling off not tied to
> > > decreasing CO2 levels would be a contradiction.
> >
> > Not necessarily. All other factors have to be accounted for.
> >
>
> Once again, selectively cautious language makes me suspicious. If the
> appropriate level of caution is to be used is stating the falsifiable
> part of the theory, a comparable level of caution should be used in
> the claimed consequences.
>
> Or to put it another way, if it is acknowledged that there are other
> factors that are at least as important as the CO2 concentration (the
> radiative output of the Sun for example), then it must also be
> admitted that the concern over this one factor may be overblown and it
> may not be the leading factor in rising temperatures.
Which is why the IPCC had to find out what levels of forcing came from GHGs
and what from aerosols and Solar. The facts are in and the 'cautious
language' left behind. Why do you keep pointing to early questions? Get a
clue. The solar is a short term cycle and only forms a 'noise' over an 11
year cycle. The GHGs form a change in the baseline with a continuing trend
and no end in sight. Which is relevant?
>
> >
> > It is a basic consequence of radiative physics that if you add an
> > insulating layer to a surface that is being heated, the surface will
> > increae[sic] it's temperature.
>
> But as you pointed out: "All other things being equal."
So demonstrate that all things aren't equal. So far, all the data shows that
it is.
>
> How good are out current models tracking increasing CO2 atmospheric
> concentration to retained heat from the Sun?
Radiation physics is not a question. The calculations can be done to
whatever precision you require. The questions are not in terms of the
warming per unit of CO2, and the 'positive feedback' of H2O is now known
with a fair degree of confidence. The major question of future GW is the
levels of emissions.
> How
much variance is
> there between different models?
In fine detail, mild to moderate. In gross detail, negligeable. Compare the
Hadley and Canadian models for the U.S. in 100 years. You will note that the
pattern of warming is very close, and in agreement with other models.Only
the exact degree of warming for different areas changes.
> I do not have a great
deal of
> confidence in the current predictive models. Is there any reason I
> should?
Only education can overcome your ignorance.
>
> >
> > k...@clement.name (Ken Clement) wrote in
> > > These resilience of these hypothesis is what will eventually settle
> > > the matter. For now, the skeptic in me is still skeptical about most
> > > environmentalist claims.
> >
> > Then you are skeptical about most scientific claims as well.
>
> As the only person in the Universe who can speak with absolute
> authority on what my scientific views are: You are wrong.
>
> I have however learned that not all branches of science are equally
> mature, not all scientists are equally capable, and no one is immune
> to outside influences in forming
>
> > Even when they are claimed by the consensus of the world[']s scientists.
>
> Wrong again. The statement above should have read: "Even when they
> are claimed by a consensus..." There is also a consensus of competent
> antithetical opinion.
The consensus of the majority of the active climate researchers is not
overturned by a consensus of the screwballs, denialists, and mad scientists.
There are very few of them and they make no 'consensus' except in their
doubts. They all have different reasons for denying the mainstream.
>
> >
> > Quite pathetic.
>
> As I pointed out in my original post, condescension is not going to
> change anyone's mind about anything. (You seem resistant to this
> idea.) In the context of the current subject matter, it is also not
> indicative of a sound scientific foundation.
>
> I remain skeptical.
We've noticed. It seems unaffected by any rational argument.
Scott Douglas
> I'll have to take you for your word on that since I don't subscribe
> and didn't find anything on Scientific American's website of archived
> articles relating to this.
The main corporate funders of the Cato Institute are:
* American Farm Bureau Federation,
* Amoco,
* ARCO,
* Chase Manhattan Bank,
* Coca-Cola,
* CSX Corp.,
* Exxon,
* Ford Motor Co.,
* KochIndustries,
* Monsanto Co.,
* National Ammonia Co.,
* Philip Morris,
* Proctor and Gamble,
* Toyota Motor Sales USA.
Air Quality Standards Coalition:
This is an ad hoc creation of the:
* National Association of Manufacturers,
* American Petroleum Institute,
* American Automobile Manufacturers Association,
* National Mining Association
The CSE get its funding from:
* American Petroleum Institute,
* American Plastics Council,
* Chemical Manufacturers Association.
The Citizens For The Integrity of Science group doesn't appear to exist
except in the mind of Milloy.
APCO Associates are a very large global PR and "communications strategy"
organisation. It is a subsidiary of Grey Advertising.
Their biggest client is Phillip Morris.
They also service special-interest groups like National Rurual Health
Association and Coalition For Fairness In Medicare (anti Medicare) and
Milloy's TASSC.
APCO also has "alliances" with organisations like the International
Management and Development Institute: "APCO is available to IMDI Members
to provide separate public relations, government affairs and related
services," they boast.
At the EOP Group, Milloy has personal responsibility for the affairs of:
* Fort Howard Corporation,
* International Food Additives Council,
* Monsanto Co.
* Edison Electrics.
according to the Washington Register
Contact details:
E-mail to Stewart Fist
Address: 70 Middle Harbour Road,
LINDFIELD, NSW, 2070, Australia
Phone: +61 2 9416 7458 (H & W)
Facsimile: +61 2 9416 4582
The Junkman and the Web of Deceit;
how the spin-doctors cross-fertilise?
If you want to see how carefully crafted such a web of deceit can be,
check out run by a pseudo-science debunker by the name of Steven Milloy.
He promotes his site as "All the Junk that's fit to Debunk", and a lot of
the material in his pages is what it purports to be -- a good, and
sometimes humourous attack on bad science and activist crap.
Milloy promotes himself as a private crusader. He regularly leads the
attack on activist groups involved in questions of public health,
environmental destruction and pollution, and he proudly calls himself "The
Junkman". He loaths the Democrats; in particular Al Gore.
Milloy gives you some personal details at the site. Here's what he says:
Steven J. Milloy is the publisher of the Junk Science Home Page and an
adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.
Milloy's work on the Junk Science Home Page has garnered numerous awards,
including: being named "One of the 50 Best Web Sites of 1998" by Popular
Science; and designation as a "Hot Pick" by Science. The site has also
been recommended by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Times of
London, Financial Times, Forbes and MSNBC.
Milloy holds a B.A. in Natural Sciences from the Johns Hopkins University,
a Master of Health Sciences in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins
University School of Hygiene and Public Health, a Juris Doctorate from the
University of Baltimore, and a Master of Laws from the Georgetown
University Law Center.
In addition to the Junk Science Home Page, Milloy: appears frequently on
radio and television; has testified on risk assessment and Superfund
before the U.S. Congress; and has lectured before numerous organizations.
Milloy's publications include:
Silencing Science, with co-author Michael Gough (Cato Institute, 1998)
Science Without Sense: The Risky Business of Public Health Research (Cato
Institute, 1995)
Science-Based Risk Assessment: A Piece of the Superfund Puzzle (National
Environmental Policy Institute, 1995)
A lobbyist with a law degree is a valuable commodity in America because it
invokes lawyer/client-privilege if dubious deals ever get into the courts.
Before Milloy got into his present role as "JunkMan", he was employed by a
number of professional PR and lobbying companies, including Multinational
Business Services, which was Phillip Morris's main lobbyist on the
environmental tobacco issue in late 1992 (when Milloy worked there).
Phillip Morris later funded the organisation known as TASSC through APCO
Associates, with Milloy as its director. [See below].
Milloy is currently listed as an "adjunct fellow" at the Cato Institute,
which leaves the impression that he is an independent, highly educated,
science commentator funded by an independent foundation. This boost's his
impied claim to be carrying on a personal crusade to clean up the science
shonks -- while, in fact, he is a lacky who specialises in a subtle form
of lobbying, and runs misinformation campaigns for business.
He writes books for the Cato Institute sarcastically attacking the
scientific expertise and ethics of any scientist who's results threaten
American corporate business.
The Cato Institute is a well-known independent "free-enterprise"
think-tank run by members of the Republican Right in Washington DC. ["22
years of promoting public policy based on individual liberty, limited
government, free markets, and peace. "]
It also runs what it calls the "Cato University" which offers expensive
summer courses to those with a " commitment to liberty and an interest in
the world of ideas".
It also employs the writer-humourist PJ. O'Rourke, and funds him to
travel, speak, and to write his very humourous books attacking anything
remotely resembling concern for the environment, consumerism, or political
liberalism. That's fair enough, I guess, most humourists take a leftish
line and their attack on the Republican Right are far more vicious.
Behind the scenes the Cato Institute is, itself, actually funded by many
major corporations and industry associations with vested interests,
including the American Farm Bureau Federation, Amoco, ARCO, Chase
Manhattan Bank, Coca-Cola, CSX Corp., Exxon, Ford Motor Co.,
KochIndustries, Monsanto Co., National Ammonia Co., Philip Morris, Proctor
and Gamble, and Toyota Motor Sales USA.
"Cato promotes the private funding of science, free from the politics and
waste that accompany government programs, and will continue to work to
reduce regulations based on faulty risk assessments, bad science, and
value-laden assumptions." They are all worthy aims -- but the devil is in
the detail.
Steve Milloy writes most of his books in association with the Cato
Institute's Director of Science and Risk Studies, Michael Gough, another
PR specialist who has long served industry well (particularly the paper
industry).
Gough lists himself as being "against politics-driven government funding
of science and in favor of private funding." He's not actually attacking
universities and such, he means research of the kind conducted by the EPA
(Environmental Protection Agency) and FDA (Food and Drug Administration),
and medical research not conducted by, and for the benefit of, drug
companies. He also wants all defence and welfare research to be
out-sourced from profit-making organisations.
There's a lot of corporate benefit in this, apart from just the tax
savings. In America, any publicly funded research project must be
published in full within a month of completion -- while projects funded
privately through private research organisations can be held to be
confidential.
Gough has "testified against the Advanced Technology Program, a Department
of Commerce corporate welfare program, and against government funding of
'environmental research,' which is focused on extending the underpinnings
regulation, not scientific understanding."
Cato credits him thus: "Gough's goals include:
* exposing questionable or 'junk' science;
* illuminating the opportunity costs of resulting regulations; and
* combating the publicÕs fear of chemicals.
This is the position that Milloy and Gough both take. But now let me tell
you what Milloy doesn't reveal about himself in his C/V at the junkscience
site.
Until a few years ago he was the director of science policy studies at the
National Environmental Policy Institute (a part of The Center for
Strategic and International Studies -- a public policy research
institution "dedicated to analysis and policy impact").
This organisation appears to be dedicated more towards transforming (or
destroying) both the EPA and the FDA, and challenging the Superfund
clean-ups of toxic chemical locations.
The mission statement of the NEPI organisation says it has a "commitment
to providing a substantive framework for improving environmental policy
and management. It draws upon the collective skill, experience and
knowledge of elected officials, industry representatives, government
policy makers, academics and members of the environmental and scientific
communities.
"NEPI is dedicated to establishing realistic environmental priorities and
helping to focus the national environmental debate," they say. And one of
the ways they focus the debate is to have on-staff those members of the
Reagan Administration who didn't get jobs with the Cato Institute. They
bill themselves as " a non-profit, bipartisan organization of
environmental leaders." and have on-board Timothy K. Judge who is the
"founder and former president of Bio-Safe Incorporated, a medical waste
disposal company, [who] is currently a consultant on environmental
management systems and brownfield restoration."
Milloy frequently appeared on radio and television programs for the NEPI,
and has testified on risk assessment and the Superfund before the American
Congress. One report of such testimonial states: "Clearly, any meaningful
reform of Superfund must address risk assessments and remediation
technologies required by the EPA. Costly decisions have been made in the
past because Superfund has been viewed as a cleanup program, not a risk
reduction program."
The NEPI's publication, Science-Based Risk Assessment: A Key to the
Superfund Puzzle, says:
"Sound science and more accurate risk assessments can significantly reduce
the costs of remediation, while reducing real health risks when they are
found. Steven J. Milloy of the NEPI suggests that the costs of cleanups
would fall by 60 percent if the program focused more directly on risk when
identifying the appropriate remedies."
NEPI is also associated with The Air Quality Standards Coalition (AQSC)
which represent an industry viewpoint that current clean-air regulations
are adequate, and that more stringent regulations would harm business.
This is actually an ad hoc coalition created by the National Association
of Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute, the American
Automobile Manufacturers Association, the National Mining Association and
others for the express purpose of fighting the EPA's proposed clean air
standards.
While Milloy was involved, the AQSC held numerous news "briefings",
launched its own Internet web sites, and paid PR companies to place news
stories proclaiming that the EPA's data is "junk science." In addition,
the Coalition retained the services of political adviser to Vice President
Al Gore, Carter Eskew, for a contract that is estimated at over $5
million.
C Boyden Gray, an outspoken critic of the EPA's standards and a lobbyist
for Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, a firm specialising in environmental and
regulatory risk management, is the principle spokesman and organiser of
the AQSC. He was once White House legal counsel for President Bush, and he
claims to have ghostwritten the weakened Clean Water Act for Senator Bob
Dole.
His grandfather Bowman Gray, was the principal owner of the R.J. Reynolds
Tobacco Co. and his father, Gordon Gray, founded the Bowman Gray
(memorial) Medical School in Winston-Salem and was actively involved in
the 1940s national eugenical sterilisation movement along with other Clay
relatives.
C. Boyden Gray is also chairman of Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE - a
national free-market think-tank and public policy organization), which is
yet another major players in the anti-clean air debate. This is another
group working with the National Association of Manufacturers.
The CSE appears also to be directly involved in anti-regulatory strategy
planning with AQSC and they get their funding from the American Petroleum
Institute, the American Plastics Council and the Chemical Manufacturers
Association.Ê The CSE's budget quadrupled from $4 million in 1991 to $17.6
million in 1995 and the organisation claims that its cash comes equally
from industry, foundations and individuals.
Steve Milloy also runs an organisation called Citizens For The Integrity
of Science, which he claims on his junkscience.com web site to be the
funder and copyright owner of the site. Its registered address is at his
home: 12309 Briarbush Lane, Potomac, MD 20854 -- which is also the
location of his software company, Simusoft Inc. Milloy flogs Pathogen
Modeling Software, said to be "PC software that simulates the growth of
foodborne pathogens."
"For food processors, it is an inexpensive way to reduce the potential for
food poisoning," the sales blurb explains. It apparently saves food
companies from having to do laboratory checks by simulating laboratory
tests on the food itself.
Milloy is now better known in non-Internet circles as the executive
director of TASSC (The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition), which is
run by APCO Associates, an international PR and lobbying company which
specialises in "grassroots lobbying" for corporate clients. APCO
Associates, is a division of Grey Advertising.
TASSC was founded and funded by Philip Morris, then later the whole
tobacco industry joined in with the National Association of Manufacturers,
which spread its interests wider. The aim of the organisation is to
generally discredit epidemiological studies that reveal evidence contrary
to the funders interests.
APCO Associates shares a Washington DC office with a number of registered
lobbyist organisations and some trade and industry associations, including
the Business Round Table and Business Executives for National Security,
Inc.
According to an article published by Professor Stanton Glantz and Elisa
Ong in the famous UK medical journal The Lancet (April 8, 2000) entitled
"Tobacco industry efforts subverting International Agency for Research on
Cancer's second-hand smoke study" this association began as nothing more
than a very clever, very subtle tobacco industry front. Milloy and APCO
have apparently subsequenty extended the boundaries of its activities
beyond that of just supporting the tobacco industry.
In the Lancet article the authors point out that TASSC was originally
created by the Philip Morris tobacco company in order to sew seeds of
scientific doubt about health risks associated with environmental tobacco
smoke. And, owing to the extreme (and well-deserved) stigma associated
with tobacco industry-funded science, they scrupulously disguised TASSC's
links to Philip Morris.
The idea was that TASSC would spend most of its time and money talking
about other so-called "junk science" issues such as Alar, global warming,
etc., Then Milloy could sneak in mentions of tobacco (or rather
"anti-tobacco science" = junk-science) whenever he thought he could get
away with it. Later he obviously found other clients who also needed the
same service. The Lancet article is available online at
http://www.thelancet.com (Free guest registration) and you can also find
the internal Philip Morris documents at Phillip Morris 1 (and ask for
TASSC).
In these archives of Phillip Morris (opened to the public following the
tobacco settlement) you will find 199 references to the tobacco industry's
funding and control of TASSC. Milloy is now trying desperately to distance
himself from TASSC.
On the side, Milloy also runs another right-wing business-funded
'think-tank' called EPAN (Environmental Policy Analysis Network) and a
couple of his own companies, Milloy, Inc. and Simusoft, Inc., Milloy Inc.
appears to have a couple of full time employees running the junkscience
pages -- either that, or he doesn't sleep nights.
His relationship with TASSC was much more important than the EPAN links
(which probably only has one member) because TASSC has, and uses, the
cover of many good scientists as members, and these are people who
probably genuinely want to promote better science. It also has some other
shonky scientists and science-entrepreneurial types in its membership
lists (who seem to play a more prominant role than the genuine scientists
-- so TASSC may be being used as a cover for other activities).
See this letter posted at the Junk Science page itself. Note the list of
directors (mostly scientists who lobby for corporation), and note the fact
that Milloy was savaging an anti-tobacco paper.
Mark Dowie of The Nation has also charged the New York Times with sloppy
acceptance of material promoted by TASSC. In his July 1998 article Dowie
says:
Ames is an active adviser to The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition
(TASSC), a corporate-supported "watchdog coalition that advocates the use
of sound sciences in public policy." TASSC has about 900 members, 375 of
whom are scientists. The rest are executives from the chemical, oil,
dairy, timber, paper, mining, manufacturing and agribusiness industries
seeking ways to defend their products in media and the courts. TASSC's Web
site offers examples of "junk science," alongside a host of entries
defending bovine growth hormone, genetically engineered foodstuffs,
dioxin, electromagnetic fields and endocrine disrupting chemicals. On the
site can also be found almost every article Gina Kolata has written
defending a chemical or technology. In 1995 TASSC awarded Kolata its
"Sound Science in Journalism Award." Neither she nor the Times lists it
among her awards and citations.
TASSC's funders include 3M, Amoco, Chevron, Dow Chemical, Exxon, General
Motors, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lorillard Tobacco,
Louisiana Chemical Association, National Pest Control Association,
Occidental Petroleum, Philip Morris Companies, Procter & Gamble, Santa Fe
Pacific Gold, and W.R. Grace, the pesticide manufacturers.
TASSC gets is public relations strength both from its list of 500
scientists who are deemed to be 'Advisors' and from the fact that it
belongs itself to legitimate environmental organisations. For instance,
Milloy's TASSC belongs to ECO, the Environmental Conservation Organization
known around the world for its "wise use" umbrella network.
But one close look a TASSC's record will show a different picture. TASSC
officials have regularly criticised highly-recognised and perfectly
legitimate studies ranging from the quality of drinking water to the
safety of baby food. TASSC claims that these adverse health reports are
based on dubious science and are employing scare tactics to drum up
financial support -- but they don't reveal where their own funding support
comes from. In fact, it comes from Phillip Morris and other major US
organisations with pollution and health problems.
Like all good public relations, the strength of the message being sold
depends to a very large degree on the credibility of the organisation.
Credibility is best promoted by merging genuine and fake claims, with the
legitimate information blended carefully with the skillfully-crafted
backlash material. When credibility has been established though a list of
reputable scientists acting as advisors, it steadily becomes easier to
make a claim of "junk-science" stick.
This is Milloy's particular skill. He is the best in the PR profession at
blending legitimate criticism of bad science (and there's plenty around)
with illegitimate criticism of science that is against his clients
financial interests.
TASSC's scientists/members lend their names to the organisation on the
basis that it's mission is purely one of advancing good scientific
practice. They do so in the belief that TASSC is closely associated with
government and environmental groups. Of course, that's not the whole
story, but most of the scientists don't know that. Nor do the media, who
are equally gullible.
TASSC gets a special mention in Ken Silverstein's book Washington on $10
million a day subtitled "How Lobbyists Plunder the Nation" (1998), as does
the Competitive Enterprises Institute (below), and another "Astroturf
grassroots" lobby group "Citizens for a Sound Economy".
The 'Washington Representatives' (1996, Columbia Books, Washington DC)
listing of registered lobbyists, reveals Milloy is actually employed by
the EOP Group, which works for GCC and has many major US polluters as
clients. (American Petroleum Institute, the Business Roundtable, the
Chlorine Chemistry Council, Edison Electric Institute, National Mining
Association and the Nuclear Energy Institute, to name just a few).
One of Milloy's claims to fame is creating the Information Council for the
Environment (ICE), a front organisation for the coal industry (National
Coal Association, the Western Fuels Association, and Edison Electrical
Institute). ICE was later run by Bracy Williams & Co., a Washington,
DC-based PR firm, but back in 1996 it launched a half-million dollar
advertising blitz to assuage public fears about global warming.
[Note this claim is now suspect. Milloy was definitely associated with
these activities, but he may not have actually created ICE.]
Both ICE and the campaign collapsed after leaks of strategic-planning
memos revealed that they had been paying-off scientists to support their
cause.
ICE appears to be directly associated with the Competitive Enterprise
Institute (CEI) a conservative Washington think tank that focuses on
"free-market environmentalism". The CEI has taken a front position
belittling what it calls "hypothetical risks to human health" from
environmental pollution.
At a recent Congress hearing their representative stated that global
climate change politics were fallaciously built on the assumption that
humans are changing climate, and that this change will necessarily result
in catastrophic events.
He then refuted all such criteria (and there are some scientist who would
agree with this position) however he then emphasized the importance of
wealth in addressing extreme events, such as hurricanes and floods. His
comparison, as presente to the Congressional hearing, was between the loss
of life in Florida and that in Bangladesh after similar storms. The
implication was that it is better to pollute -- then to combat the
problems you create later, by being wealthy enough to fix the damage.
The position of the CEI is that the first world should not attempt to
control energy use and therefore make developing countries poorer, but
rather, allow them to develop their economic base for technological
advancement and resilience to battle such hurricans and floods.
The claim has a certain glimmer of rationality, until you find out who
funds the propaganda; it is a creature of the energy and mining
industries, and one of the major funders is the Mississippi Valley Coal
Trade & Transport Council.
The CEI are also 'collaborating' with Australia's Western Mining
Corporation, The Australian Government (major coal exporters), Ford
Motors, American Petroleum Institute and the US National Mining
Association on the Kyoto issue.
Consumer Alert
The CEI is also linked to a "free market" outfit called Consumer Alert,
which is actually an industry-funded front-group (astroturf organisation)
supported by the Chlorine Chemistry Council. This is itself an arm of the
Chemical Manufacturers Association (the descendent of the Manufacturing
Chemists Association which led the attack on Rachael Carson in 1962).
A secretary at Chlorine Council inadvertently revealed to a reporter that
the group has a $13.5 million annual budget including more than $2 million
a year for "communications". Consumer Alert has been vocal in its
dismissal of the recent book 'Our Stolen Future' following the pattern
which was established when the chemical industry went after Rachael
Carson's 'Silent Spring'.
After ICE collapsed, it was replaced by the Global Climate Coalition (GCC)
as the 'grassroots' organisation supporting the oil, coal, power and
electricity distribution industry on environmental issues, and Milloy was
working with the GCC during Kyoto. PR Watch reported "TASSC attempted to
stimulate anti-treaty email to President Clinton by promising to enter
writers' names in a $1,000 sweepstakes drawing."
On the eve of the Conference in December 1997, Milloy, on behalf of TASSC,
Phillip Morris, and other corporate funders, announced that more than 500
physicians and scientists had signed an open letter to world leaders
opposing any climate change treaty. When asked to provide the signers'
names and credentials, Milloy told the authors that he had not had time to
"compile" the hard-copy list. (See: Sierra release)
Milloy's employment by the EOP Group Inc. dates back to before 1995, and
it includes a record of lobbying on behalf of the Fort Howard Corporation,
the International Food Additives Council, Monsanto Co. and Edison
Electrics.
The EOP Group publications: "PMA Value to Taxpayers and Customers,"
(Washington: Edison Electric Institute April 1995) is probably one of his
works, as is "Measuring Up to the Year 2000 Aim of the Framework
Convention on Climate Change".
More recently, the EOP Group's boss Mike O'Bannon has been implicated in a
bribery and corruption scandal involving Clinton's Secretary for
Agriculture, Mike Espy (of the USDA). Among the 30-odd charges was one
related to Espy's acceptance from the EOP Group of $US2,200 worth of
tickets to the 1994 Super Bowl, and a job for Espy's girlfriend Patricia
Dempsey.
The Washington Post (Nov 98) reported the arrangement in this way:
Another friend of Espy's, lobbyist Michael O'Bannon, likewise denied doing
anything improper by giving him a ticket to the 1994 Super Bowl game. At
the time, O'Bannon was working on behalf of Oglethorpe Power, which wanted
to repay a $3 billion USDA loan earlier than scheduled but also wanted to
avoid paying $300 million in penalties. Although Espy and others at USDA
sided with Oglethorpe, the Treasury Department rejected the arrangement.
O'Bannon also helped Patricia Dempsey. In early 1994, he hired her to work
as a training and events coordinator for his company, EOP Group Inc., a
job that paid $35,000 a year. O'Bannon testified that Dempsey's
performance was "sporadic at best," and said his partners and clients
complained about her. She resigned from the firm in March 1995, after Espy
had left USDA. O'Bannon testified that he hired Dempsey because the firm
needed help and not in any way to curry favor with Espy. "I don't do
favors in hiring," he said.